The two people accused of with nitrogen gas in February 2024 didn’t appear to follow the law, a legal expert said of the first prosecution of its kind in Colorado since the state’s medical aid in dying law went into effect.
Kim Roller, 70, and David Norton, 68, were indicted by a Boulder County grand jury Jan. 8 and charged with manslaughter by aiding suicide. Kim Roller, the woman’s daughter, and Norton, the woman’s son-in-law, are accused of buying nitrogen gas and the accessories needed to help Kim Roller’s mother, Mildred “Milsy” Roller, use the gas to kill herself at Louisville’s The Lodge at Balfour.
Norton is the husband of another of Mildred’s daughters, according to the indictment.
Mildred and was not found incompetent, according to a grand jury indictment.
Neither Kim Roller nor her attorney could be reached for comment. The office of Norton’s attorney was contacted, but no comment was provided by the Daily Camera’s deadline.
The law wasn’t followed, expert says
The case looks pretty cut and dry, Jonathon Booth, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder, said. The state’s medical aid in dying law, the , doesn’t apply, because of how Kim Roller and Norton allegedly helped in Mildred Roller’s death, he added.
“There’s all these different processes you have to follow,” Booth said. “There was no attempt to really do this at all.”
Under the End-of-Life Options Act, terminally ill Coloradans can request medication for the purpose of ending their life on their terms. Under the 2016 law, patients must have two physicians sign off on an aided death after their determation that the person is terminally ill, must have fewer than six months to live, and must be mentally capable of making such a decision, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.
There’s not much difference between what Kim Roller and Norton did, Booth said, and if someone bought a gun for a 25-year-old friend who just had a bad breakup and is suicidal.
“The fact that this person was old is just not, on its own, relevant,” Booth said, adding that even if the woman had a terminal illness, the law still would need to be followed to a tee.
The End-of-Life Options Act should be understood as a legal exception so that doctorswon’t get charged with manslaughter, Booth said. If all the processes are followed correctly, the law gives doctors a pathway to hastening a terminally ill patientap death, he said.
The law is not meant as an exception for families to take matters into their own hands, Booth added.
Although Kim Roller and Norton didn’t appear to follow the law, Booth said, that wouldn’t stop a jury from exonerating the pair if they had a sufficiently sympathetic argument. A daughter helping her old mother end her suffering could be a compelling argument, and might lead a jury to avoid convicting the pair even if they meet the bar for having broken the law.
If defense attorneys make that argument, it might not hold up when the daughter’s apparent inheritance comes up, Booth said. Kim Roller was reportedly slated to receive a share of Mildred Roller’s estate upon the latter’s death, the indictment states.
Mildred Roller’s will stipulates that after her death, her children receive equal shares of her estate, which included a savings account with approximately $655,540 in it, the indictment states.
Police also reviewed numerous texts between Kim Roller and her sister, in which the sisters discuss their mother’s estate, their inheritances and plans to purchase equipment to help in Mildred Roller’s death, according to the indictment.
The first such prosecution in Colorado
In Colorado, only six other cases since the medical aid in dying law went into effect in Dec. 2016 have involved the same manslaughter by aiding suicide charge, according to Colorado Judicial Branch records. None of them has looked quite like the Louisville case, court records show.
No cases involving the same charge involve someone hastening an older person’s death.
In 2017, a Weld County man also pleaded down from a first-degree murder charge to manslaughter by aiding suicide, in a case in which he was accused of shooting a friend of his and crushing him with a truck, according to and Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke.
The man and friend reportedly came up with the plan to both end the 49-year-old friend’s life and give the other man an insurance payout.
A Colorado Springs person was arrested in 2023 and accused of trying to kill themself and their romantic partner in a planned joint suicide, according to an arrest affidavit. They pleaded guilty to manslaughter by aiding suicide in 2024, court records show.
Both people were less than 20 years old at the time, the affidavit states.
A Mesa County man pleaded guilty to a manslaughter by aiding suicide charge after being accused of playing a role in the 2019 while tied-up in the desert, an arrest affidavit states.
A Denver man is accused of playing a role in another man’s 2023 accidental drug overdose death, an arrest affidavit states. A Colorado Springs woman is accused of distributing drugs to someone who later died in 2025. She was later charged with one count of manslaughter by aiding suicide, another arrest affidavit states.
An Aurora man was arrested in 2017 and accused of attempted murder in the stabbing of a woman, according to an arrest affidavit. A jury acquitted him on one count of manslaughter by aiding suicide, but convicted him of first-degree murder, court records show.
What advocates say about the case, and aid in dying broadly
The way Mildred Roller’s death was allegedly facilitated was “neither ethical nor legal,” Barbara Morris, a geriatrician and president of End of Life Options Colorado, said.
Morris, a supporter of the aid-in-dying law, said giving terminally ill patients an option to hasten their death is a good tool in a toolbox full of options to alleviate suffering. When a patient is suffering and wants to explore aid in dying, respecting their wishes is paramount, Morris said.
“People feel really abandoned … at the end of life,” Morris said. “I think this gives them agency.”
But the law doesn’t mean people should take matters into their own hands, Morris said. In fact, it means the opposite.
Not abiding by the law crafted to give terminally ill patients an off-ramp both breaks the law and hurts the law’s strength, Morris said. Trying to bend the bounds of the exception offered by the End-of-Life Options Act puts a stain on an otherwise good-hearted law, she said.
When someone is suffering, Morris said she hopes they ask for help and seek out a variety of options and opinions, and that they talk to receptive clinicians. Morris said she has spoken with patients who receive life-ending drugs under Colorado law, but have chosen not to take them, because having free will gave them the sense of peace they needed.
“This is a choice, right?” Morris said. “The patient is in the driver’s seat.”
The law gives the families of those suffering to feel a degree of peace, too, Sarah Jane Coffey, an end-of-life, grief, and death doula in Boulder, said.
Thatap part of why she found the Louisville case heartbreaking, she said. Coffey, who has worked with 15 clients who looked into medical aid in dying, said families often bear an emotional burden during what is a difficult time — especially so when the family doesn’t have adequate support.
“You’ll see people who are left with really complex, dissonant feelings about their role in the end of life for their loved one,” Coffey said of families who don’t have that support.
A death doula offers support for patients and families struggling with terminal illnesses, and can also help organize aid in dying, Coffey said.
Coffey said that although the law has been in effect for nearly a decade, there is still room to educate people on what options are available to them.
After reading about the case in Louisville, Coffey said she wonders if Mildred Roller talked to a doctor about aid in dying. If Mildred Roller had approached Coffey, she’d have wanted to offer a robust set of options to help her, Coffey said.
“This family moved forward, and kind of took things into their own hands,” Coffey said. “They could have had the support of a hospice team, of a medical care team.”
Anyone experiencing a mental health crisis can call or text 988, 24/7, to reach the , which is free and confidential.
Updated 11:27 a.m. Feb. 11, 2026: This article was updated to correct the characterization of Boulder County’s prosecution in the subheadline.
