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The gun used by the 16-year-old boy who shot two students and then himself at Evergreen High School in September was a family heirloom, investigators with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
The Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver that Desmond Holly used in the Sept. 10 attack originally belonged to one of Desmond’s grandparents, the sheriff’s office found, and was kept in a safe in the family’s home.
Desmond’s parents will not be criminally charged in connection with the storage of the gun or their son’s access to it, the sheriff’s office concluded.
Through an attorney, the boy’s parents told investigators on Jan. 23 that the revolver was “rarely seen or used and stored out of sight near the back of a large, locked gun safe,” and that their son “did not have access to the safe, except for brief moments when it was opened by his father,” according to a news release announcing the completion of the investigation.
Douglas Richards, the attorney representing the Evergreen High shooter’s parents, told The Denver Post on Wednesday that he believes Desmond slipped the revolver out of the safe while he was with his father.
“I believe what happened is Desmond and his father were cleaning some of the family firearms, and in a moment when his father was not looking, Desmond took a firearm from the back of the safe that was an heirloom and had not been used by the family, ever,” Richards said. “Because the firearm was never used and was not stored with other firearms in the safe, its disappearance was not noticed until after the tragedy.”
The parents’ DNA was not found on the weapon, which was originally purchased in Florida in 1966.
Richards called the decision not to charge the parents “correct.”
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged, in its announcement, “that this was not the outcome many in our community hoped for.”
An email sent to Evergreen High families Wednesday, alerting them to the sheriff’s completed investigation, said victim advocates would be on campus Thursday alongside the school’s mental health and counseling teams.
Sheriff’s officials noted in their news release that investigators were “unable to speak with” Desmond’s parents and implied the family was uncooperative during the probe into the revolver’s origins.
But Richards said Desmond’s parents spoke with investigators at the hospital as their son was dying and answered written questions and follow-up questions from investigators. Richards said he also offered to sit down with investigators to explain how the gun was stored.
“I have… explained from the outset that the firearm in this case was stolen without the knowledge of Desmond’s parents,” Richards said. “…We have cooperated at every single turn, and it was only earlier this (year) that on my own I decided to just send the DA’s office a letter explaining what occurred, which obviously satisfied them that what we had been saying all along was true — that this was a terrible tragedy that was not foreseeable by anyone in Desmond’s family.”
Desmond died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the end of his attack on the high school.
He roamed the halls for about nine minutes and shot in several areas before leaving the building. Desmond wounded a 14-year-old boy who was not publicly identified and 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone; both were seriously injured but survived. Video of the attack shows that Desmond physically grappled with Silverstone before shooting him.
Officials said Desmond acted alone and was “radicalized” before the attack. His social media profiles suggested he was part of a new wave of online extremism that encourages the use of violence to destroy society. The teenager’s accounts were littered with references to white supremacy, antisemitism and violence, with a particular focus on past mass shootings, including the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School.
In a photo posted on TikTok a few days before the attack, Desmond posed wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Wrath” written in red across the chest — similar to what one of the Columbine attackers wore. The same post also included an image of the 15-year-old who killed two people and injured six more at a Madison, Wisconsin, school in December 2024.
A post on X about an hour before the Sept. 10 attack on Evergreen High showed an image of a hand holding a revolver.
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