Robert Dear, the man who was charged with killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in 2015 because it offered abortion services, has died in federal custody, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Tuesday.
Dear died Saturday at a medical center for federal prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, the Bureau of Prisons said. Dear, 67, died of natural causes, said Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the agency.
Dear, who was charged in 2019 in federal court, became entangled in a legal battle over whether he could be medicated for his mental illness, delusional disorder, against his will. He had been repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial, stalling his prosecution. He was most recently civilly committed with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael J. Allen, whose office tried to prosecute Dear in state court.
The Associated Press left a voicemail for the federal public defender’s office in Colorado seeking comment. A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment Tuesday.
Last year, a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld a federal judge’s order from 2022 allowing Dear to be forcibly medicated in order to be well enough to stand trial. Dear’s lawyers had contended that side effects could worsen Dear’s health issues, such as untreated high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Dear had called himself a “warrior for the babies.” Federal prosecutors alleged that he armed himself with several guns, propane tanks and 500 rounds of ammunition and shot outside the clinic before shooting his way through the door.
Ke’Arre Stewart, 29, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and was a father of two, and Jennifer Markovsky, 36, a mother of two who grew up in Oahu, Hawaii, were accompanying friends to the clinic before they were killed. Garrett Swasey, a campus police officer at a college nearby, responded after hearing of an active shooter and was also killed. Nine others were injured.
“All three victims, and this community, deserved the full measure of justice in this case but they are now denied that possibility,” Allen said.
