Five days before 16-year-old Grace Ryan died, she begged her mother for help.
“I’m in so much pain I can’t keep doing this. Do something,” the girl messaged her mother, according to an Arvada Police Department arrest affidavit released Thursday.
Gretchen Ryan, 55, dismissed her daughter’s concerns. She is now charged with second-degree murder in Grace’s death after investigators found she enabled and encouraged her daughter’s alcoholism even when Grace’s health plummeted to the point that the teenager vomited blood and became incontinent.
“If you’re going to do this to me you need to take me to a hospital,” the girl wrote during a text-message exchange with her mother shortly after 4 p.m. on March 4, according to the affidavit.
“Why did you ask me to get more?” her mother responded.
“I’m gonna die,” the teenager said.
“No you aren’t,” her mother answered.
“I’m not doing it,” Grace wrote.
“Don’t drink anymore. Just smoke weed,” Gretchen Ryan responded.
“Call 911,” Grace wrote.
“Seriously?” her mother said.
“I don’t know what else to do,” the girl answered.
“You are going to breathe and stop drinking,” Gretchen Ryan responded. “Are you throwing up?”
“You won’t do anything,” Grace wrote. “I’m in so much pain.”
The 16-year-old girl died March 9 at her home in Arvada. In her obituary, she is remembered as enjoying music, art, church, pets and friends. She hoped to become a social worker, .
In interviews with police, Gretchen Ryan repeatedly said she caused her daughter’s death, according to the 25-page affidavit.
“I feel like I killed her,” the woman said.
The 55-year-old mother, who described herself as an alcoholic, repeated that sentiment several times before and after the teenager’s death, according to the records, even as she ensured her daughter had a heavy supply of available alcohol and worked with the teenager to hide both of their drinking habits from Grace’s father.
“I’m committing child abuse and murder,” Gretchen Ryan messaged her daughter in a string of unanswered texts in January. “And I will go to prison. So we have to do something it is really bad. Do you understand? Vomiting blood is a really bad sign. Look it up. I probably should tell (redacted) and take you to the hospital. Are you reading these? Hello!!!’nnm Respond!!!!!!!!!! Do you want to die? If (redacted) saw you he’d freak out. Quit ignoring me.”
In other messages, Gretchen Ryan said she “tried to be the cool (redacted) and (expletived) up.”
Both mother and daughter consumed about a bottle of vodka a day each, according to the affidavit. Gretchen Ryan frequently ordered the liquor to be delivered to the family’s home, and the pair worked together to hide the severity of their drinking from Grace’s father, using a backpack to secretly move bottles of alcohol through the house, and hiding bottles for each other in a bathroom.
Grace’s father told investigators he’d only discovered his daughter drinking on two occasions, and that he’d confiscated the alcohol. The father declined to comment when reached by The Denver Post on Wednesday.
Gretchen Ryan estimated that her daughter drank to the point of vomiting at least once a week.
On March 3, Grace texted a friend and said she’d been an alcoholic for a year but wanted to get sober.
“I never wanted to be like this,” the teenager wrote to her friend, before expressing fear that her mother would be sent to prison. “I don’t think she wants me to get help which is what really scares me… I’m gonna die.”
Investigators later found 173 empty bottles of alcohol hidden in the teenager’s bedroom, according to the affidavit. The messages reviewed by investigators show the teenager often had to drink alcohol to avoid withdrawal. Her mother pulled her from public school in the fall of 2025 and enrolled the teenager in an online school.
On the night that Grace died, Gretchen told police she heard the girl fall in the bathroom and checked on her. She rolled Grace on her side but believed Grace was experiencing a seizure and would recover. She said Grace woke up and asked her to leave the bathroom. She checked on the girl one more time before going to bed, the woman said.
She messaged her daughter at 9:52 p.m.
“Doing ok?” Gretchen Ryan wrote.
“Pplplplease” her daughter wrote back at 10:07 p.m.
That was the last message Grace ever sent.
