JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — An affidavit paints a bleak picture of the time leading up to a teen’s alcohol-related death, with the teen repeatedly expressing concerns she would die — and her mother repeatedly expressing concerns that she would go to jail.
According to the document filed in Jefferson County district court, the teen frequently told her mom, who has now been charged with second-degree murder, that she was scared. The teen was found dead on her bathroom floor of an Arvada residence March 9, and her mother, Gretchen Ryan, was charged with murder in May.
"I can't do this. I'm so upset.... I feel like I killed her,” Ryan told detectives after her daughter was found dead, according to the affidavit.
The teen's autopsy showed she had an "abnormally fatty liver" for someone her age, and the coroner found that her death was caused by aspiration pneumonia "directly related" to chronic alcohol use, the court filing states.
The teen and her mom talked about alcohol almost daily, with Ryan ordering alcohol for the two of them and concealing it from the teen's father, according to the affidavit and a media release from the district attorney's office. The teen would often beg for Ryan to bring her alcohol, saying she couldn’t get up to get it herself, and that her whole body hurt, the court filing shows.
The texts included in the affidavit referenced the teen wearing an adult diaper and also repeatedly referenced the teen vomiting blood, with Ryan saying it was “a bad sign.”
Crime
Mother charged with murder after alcohol-related death of her teen
Just days before the 16-year-old’s death she texted her mom, “If you're going to do this to me you need to take me to a hospital,” according to the document.
“I’m gonna die,” the teen wrote in a March 4 text included in the affidavit.
“No you aren’t,” Ryan replied, according to the filing.
A series of texts from Ryan to the teen included in the court documents show Ryan saying was going to take alcohol away, but nothing in the affidavit indicates she did. On multiple occasions, Ryan said she was going to jail.
“I’m committing child abuse and murder,” a January text included in the affidavit reads. “And I will go to prison. So we have to do something it is really bad.”
Ryan also at times told the teen she needed rehab.
“If you can't get up to pee, get food or drink and puke blood we aren't going to make it.... We need help
"This isn't working. I'm going to lose you,” she wrote in texts included in the affidavit.
None of the information in the affidavit indicates the teen ever went to rehab or got help.
"I don't think she wants to get me help which is what really scares me ... I'm gonna die," the teen wrote in a March 3 text to a friend included in the filing.
In the texts to the friend recovered from the teen's iPad included in the affidavit, the teen also said, "me and her have been fighting really bad recently and it gets physical... she could go to prison for 15 years."
When detectives first questioned Ryan in the wake of the death, she said she didn’t know if the teen had been “getting into” her “stuff,” but then eventually admitted she gave the teen alcohol, per the filing. She repeatedly told them she herself drank a lot, too.
More than 170 alcohol bottles were found in the teen's bedroom, according to the affidavit.
At one point, Ryan told detectives she “deserved to go to jail,” the court document states.
Ryan told detectives the teen had a seizure the night before she was found dead in the bathroom, according to the document. Ryan told detectives the teen had a seizure in the past, and when she was taken to the hospital, a doctor told them it was "normal" for teenage girls.
Medical records included in the affidavit were redacted.
According to Ryan, the teen woke up from the seizure on the night of March 8 and was vomiting, but Ryan believed she was "OK," she told detectives, according to the affidavit.
At 10:56 p.m., Ryan sent a text asking whether the 16-year-old was OK, the court document states. According to the filing, the detective asked Ryan why she didn’t get up to check on her daughter and Ryan said she was “scared I was gonna find her really sick.”
“And so I kind of buried my head in the sand and I went back to bed. Which was stupid,” she told the detective, according to the filing.
911 was not called until around 8 a.m. the next morning, according to a press release from the DA's office.
Upon Ryan signing a form consenting to a full search of her phone, she reportedly said she was going to jail, according to the filing.
When the detective asked why, according to the affidavit, Ryan said: “Because you're gonna see it and be like, what did you do?"
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