A survivor of the Columbine High School massacre’s death has been declared a homicide almost 26 years after the shooting, according to a coroner’s report.

Anne Marie Hochhalter was found dead in her home in Westminster, Colo. at age 43 on Feb. 16, 2025. An autopsy report released by the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office declared that her “manner of death is best classified as homicide,” according to reports from NBC News, CBS News and KDVR-TV.

The autopsy report noted, per the outlets, that she had died due to sepsis, which is described by the Mayo Clinic as a serious condition in which the body responds improperly to an infection, which can lead to “organ failure, tissue damage and death.” The two gunshot wounds that left Hochhalter paralyzed and wheelchair-bound were also a “significant contributing factor” in her death, the autopsy report stated.

The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The autopsy confirmed the suspicions of Hochhalter’s loved ones, including Sue Townsend, the stepmother of Columbine victim Lauren Townsend, who told the Denver Post shortly after her death that it appeared to be related to complications from medical issues stemming from injuries sustained in the shooting.

“She was a fighter. She’d get knocked down — she struggled a lot with health issues that stemmed from the shooting — but I’d watch her pull herself back up,” Townsend told the Denver Post. “She was her best advocate and an advocate for others who weren’t as strong in the disability community.”

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With Hochhalter’s death, the number of victims of the Columbine High School massacre has risen to 14, per NBC News. The count does not include the two shooters, 17-year-old Dylan Klebold and 18-year-old Eric Harris, who killed themselves before being arrested.

Hochhalter was a 17-year-old junior at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, when the two students opened fire on their classmates and teachers, killing 13 people and injuring 23 before turning their weapons on themselves.

Hochhalter had just stepped outside for fresh air when she heard a popping noise and suddenly felt something strike her back, she told PEOPLE in 2004. She was hurt but initially believed it was from a paintball gun. As a friend helped her, she was struck again by a bullet, which this time hit a vein.

“I was bleeding to death,” Hochhalter said. “It didn’t look bad on the outside, but inside it felt wrong — it felt wet.”

Though she was left paralyzed by the attack and used a wheelchair for the rest of her life,  Hochhalter told PEOPLE she considered herself one of the lucky ones.

She said, “If the ambulance had come two minutes later — even two minutes — I would have died. A lot of evil happened that day, but a lot of things went so right.”

Hochhalter was a multi-instrumentalist who played the clarinet, piano, guitar and harp, per the Denver Post. She also had a big love for dogs throughout her life, fostering and owning many over the years.

In one of her final Facebook posts, on the 25th anniversary of the shooting, Hochhalter wrote that while she had previously avoided memorial services due to PTSD, she had attended the anniversary vigil and found the occasion “most healing.”

“I’ve truly been able to heal my soul since that awful day in 1999,” she wrote, noting that she felt the presence of the 13 victims “sitting there, with smiles on their faces, wanting us to remember the good times.”