14-Year-Old in Court This Week

By Amy Brouillette, 5-22-05

A 14-year-old teen accused of second-degree murder in the shooting death of her father in March is expected to enter a plea in Boulder County juvenile court Wednesday, the Daily Camera’s Christine Reid reported Saturday.

A judge-issued gag order has barred those directly involved from speaking with the press and sealed police records from public reach, here’s what we do know: Garrett Rich, 52, died of two gunshot wounds, one each to the head and chest, according to the autopsy report obtained by New West. The girl claims she found her father suffering from a botched suicide attempt and under his direction, shot him in the chest to “put him out of his misery," according to a police statement to the Camera in March.

In April, the Boulder County District Attorney upped the charge from manslaughter, a mandatory charge in assisted suicide, to juvenile homicide, shocking friends and family who support the girl’s claim and say Rich was an abusive father, a biker who drank heavily, used cocaine and often spoke of suicide, according to the Longmont Daily Times-Call. After divorcing his wife, Mary Dolson, Rich and his daughter moved to Florida last year, where the two lived out of Rich’s truck. His daughter was never enrolled in school. The two returned to Rich’s residence in east Boulder County early this year, and a month later, Garrett Rich was dead.

Murder in Boulder County is rare—only three between 1998 and 2003, the lastest year for which crime data is available from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation—and even rarer when it involves a juvenile offender. The last time a Boulder County case involved a juvenile accused of homocide was in 1999, when 14-year-old John Christopher Engel admitted killing his mother and grandmother at their home in Longmont.

Meanwhile, the case has raised issues of media ethics, as local newsrooms grapple with the question over whether to publish the young defendant's name. While the U.S. Supreme Court protects the right of newspapers to publish names that appear in public record, whether to do so in cases involving juveniles and sexual assault victims boils down to newsroom ethics and policy, weighing the public’s right to know against the defendant’s rights. The Times-Call, in this case, chose to print the defendant’s name, while the Camera has so far withheld it.

For now, the girl awaits trial at a juvenile detention facility in Greeley. If found guilty she faces up to five years at a juvenile correction facility.
[End of article]