Aidan von Grabow was fifteen years old when he fatally stabbed a woman to death. According to court documents Aidan von Grabow when to the victims home and would fatally stab the woman soon after she opened the door. Police believe the intended victim was the victim’s younger sister. Along with the murder charge Aidan von Grabow was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, attempted arson, two counts of stalking among others. This teen killer was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for forty years
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Aidan von Grabow today pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing Longmont resident Makayla Grote at her home in 2017 and was sentenced to life in prison, but he will be able to apply for parole after 40 years.
Aidan Von Grabow, 17, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Boulder District Court Friday morning. The first-degree murder charge typically carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole, but because Aidan von Grabow was a juvenile at the time of the murder, he will be eligible to apply for parole after 40 years.
If he is released from prison, von Grabow will spend the rest of his life on parole.
Aidan von Grabow also pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder, two counts of stalking, menacing, criminal extortion, attempted arson and harassment. He was sentenced to 24 years on the attempted murder counts, six years on the attempted arson and extortion counts, three years on the menacing and stalking counts, and time served on the harassment charge. The sentences for those remaining charges will be served concurrently with the life sentence.
He also pleaded guilty as a juvenile to attempted murder and one count of aggravated juvenile offender.
Prosecutors dropped the remaining charges of assault, menacing and criminal mischief.
Aidan von Grabow will serve his sentence at the Division of Youth Services until he is 21, when he will be transferred to the Colorado Department of Corrections to serve the remainder of his sentence.
He will be eligible for up to 10 years of earned time for good behavior toward his parole date, but will not start accruing that time until he is transferred to the Department of Corrections.
Von Grabow stabbed Grote, 20, at her Longmont apartment on Nov. 18, 2017, when he was 15. Police believe he intended to kill Grote’s younger sister, who went to high school with von Grabow.
Grote answered the door instead of her sister, and von Grabow stabbed and killed her while her sister was able to lock herself in another room.
“This was a beautiful life cut tragically short defending herself, her home, and her family from an unspeakable act of violence,” Hartman said. “As a father of a son and a daughter, I can’t imagine the unspeakable loss of Makayla’s family.”
Grote’s sister addressed the court before leaving the room in tears, while Grote’s father wrote a letter and her mother spoke to the court, calling von Grabow a “monster.”
“You have changed all of our lives forever and took an important girl from us forever,” Dennette Grote, the victim’s mother, told von Grabow. “There never will be forgiveness. You took away a piece of my forever happiness.”
Aidan Von Grabow did not address the court during his sentencing.
Grote’s sister was just one of several people and families on von Grabow’s “death list,” which prosecutors said he was stockpiling materials for and was attempting to carry out even after killing Grote.
“If it wasn’t for the swift intervention of Longmont police, many more innocent people could have been killed,” said prosecutor Michael Petrash, who said the serious nature of the crime was the reason prosecutors tried von Grabow as an adult and insisted on the plea to first-degree murder.
Dennette Grote said she felt relief that the sentencing was over and that they got a life sentence without having to go through a trial. While von Grabow did not speak, she said he hoped he was listening.
Dennette Grote said she felt relief that the sentencing was over and that they got a life sentence without having to go through a trial. While von Grabow did not speak, she said he hoped he was listening.
“I hope he has heard what I had to say,” she said.
Hartman said he granted some expanded media coverage for this hearing so people would understand the impacts and prevalence of teenage violence, and encouraged anyone dealing with their own cases to use the state’s Safe2Tell line.
“This sentence is particularly poignant because of the events surrounding the 20th anniversary of Columbine,” Hartman said, referencing the recent school shutdowns due to an armed woman. “We see these events being replayed again and again with tragic results. I granted expanded media coverage not because of any prurient interest people may have in this case, but mainly to demo this occurs in our community and all communities.”
While Aidan von Grabow did not addres the court, his mother Veronica von Grabow spoke to the judge and Grote’s family, some of whom blamed her in their statements.
“I very much respect the pain that the Grote family is experiencing,” she said. “I can’t fathom it, I can’t fathom losing my daughter the way that you did … She didn’t deserve to die.”
She said she doesn’t condone her son’s actions, and does not know what led to them.
“He was a sweet and gentle child,” she said. “Something broke, what that something was I can’t say, but my God it broke, and in such a hurtful way, causing so much pain and suffering and loss that I can’t even wrap my head around it.”
Von Grabow’s attorneys at one point indicated they believed the effects of an acne medication were to blame for von Grabow’s sudden behavioral changes.
“There were no warning signs beyond typical teenage behavior,” von Grabow’s attorney Mike Rafik said. “He went from a quiet and introverted musician, athlete and student with no criminal history to rageful and homicidal. This homicidal ideation was sudden and nonsensical.”
But prosecutor Adrian Van Nice said the medication was just the latest in a long line of excuses von Grabow presented since his arrest, including teachers, friends and doctors.
“Everybody but himself,” Van Nice said. “Then this specatularized boogeyman in the form of big pharma. ‘It wasn’t me, the drugs made me do it.’”
Van Nice added that the stipulation in the sentence for the youth center before prison was not an admission that his age was a mitigating factor in anyway, but a safeguard should he ever make parole.
“There is a possibility the defendant will be returned to the community,” Van Nice said. “It is our hope that by giving him a few additional years in juvenile system with a focus on rehabilitation, we can in some way mitigate the risk he may pose if and when he is ever released.”
Hartman said he hopes Aidan von Grabow takes advantage of the opportunity.
“The book of life is long for the defendant, and largely unwritten,” Hartman said. “I hope he can come to right the scales of justice in some fashion.”
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A teen accused in the stabbing death of a 20-year-old woman is expected to enter a plea in the case on May 3, according to Shannon Carbone with the Boulder District Attorney’s Office.
Aiden Von Grabow, 15, at the time of the killing, is accused of stabbing Longmont resident Makayla Grote to death in November 2017.
Von Grabow also had a “kill list,” according to court testimony. It was a list of names, including some of his friends, and descriptions of how he’d murder them. Von Grabow even threatened Grote’s younger sister.
“Torture till she begs for mercy,” the note read, according to testimony from Longmont Police Detective Brian Dean. “Make her fight, then take hostage.”
Court testimony from a police officer said Von Grabow’s mother called police days before the attack on Grote saying he’d kicked in a door and came at her with a knife.
She also allegedly told investigators her son had a bunch of weapons, including Molotov cocktails and a machete. That was just a day before the teen allegedly killed Grote.
A judge decided Von Grabow would be tried in district court as an adult early last month
He was charged with:
- Count One – First Degree Murder (F1)
- Count Two – Criminal Attempt to Commit Murder in the First Degree (F2)
- Count Three – Criminal Attempt to Commit Murder in the First Degree (F2)
- Count Four – Criminal Attempt to Commit Murder in the First Degree (F2)
- Count Five – Criminal Attempt to Commit First Degree Arson (F4)
- Count Six – Criminal Extortion (F4)
- Count Seven – Menacing (F5)
- Count Eight – Menacing (F5)
- Count Nine – Stalking (F5)
- Count Ten – Stalking (F5)
- Count Eleven – Stalking (F5)
- Count Twelve – Third Degree Assault – At-Risk Person (F6)
- Count Thirteen – Criminal Mischief (M2)
- Count Fourteen – Harassment (M3)
- Counts Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen and Eighteen – Crime of Violence (SE)