A Denver hairstylist who disappeared after leaving her University Hills apartment on April 15 has been found dead, her mother announced Saturday.
“There are no words strong enough for the grief we are feeling,” Jax Gratton’s mother, Cherilynne Gratton-Camis, dedicated to finding her daughter. “The light she carried, the love she gave so freely and the joy she brought into our lives have been taken from this world far too soon.”
In the nearly two months that Gratton was missing, to share information and try to find the missing 34-year-old hairstylist.
Gratton was last seen at about 10 p.m. April 15 in the 4200 block of East Iliff Avenue, according to the Denver Police Department.
Her body was found a week short of two months later, Gratton-Camis said.
Gratton-Camis started worrying when her daughter didn’t call on Easter, and the hairstylist’s friends realized something was wrong when she missed multiple appointments with her clients. Gratton rented a studio at the Solera Salon Suites’ North Broadway location.
Gratton’s body was found in a Lakewood alley in the 9600 block of West Colfax Avenue at about 5 p.m. Friday, according to the Lakewood Police Department. Gratton-Camis said a Lakewood detective visually identified the hairstylist by her tattoos and that her daughter was found wearing the same clothes she left in.
Police initially said the body could not be identified because it was in “advanced stages of decomposition” but coroner’s officials were able to confirm it was Gratton on Tuesday. Her cause of death has not been confirmed and her death is being treated as suspicious, Lakewood police said in a news release. The agency is working with the Denver Police Department on the case.
“This has opened my eyes in ways I can’t ignore. Itap not just about Jax — itap about all of you in the LGBTQIA+ community who face the world every day with courage, just wanting to live, love and exist safely and equally,” Gratton-Camis wrote on Facebook. “That should never be a fight. And yet it is.”
Gratton’s friends and family plan to gather in front of at 1437 Bannock St. at 11 a.m. Monday to talk about her death and remember her with the community.
Updated 11:20 a.m. June 10, 2025: This article was updated to include that the Jefferson County Coroner had identified a body found in Lakewood as that of missing Denver hairstylist Jax Gratton.
