Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood accused shooter dies in custody

Updated at 5:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025.

Robert Dear, the man who was suspected of killing three people and injuring nine others in 2015 at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, died Saturday at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo.

The 67-year-old was in the process of being civilly committed, a court order that would have sent him to a federal mental health facility for treatment. 

In 2015, he was charged in state court with first-degree murder. Court-ordered mental competency evaluations found he was not competent to stand trial. In 2016, Dear was moved to the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo. 

He faced 179 state charges and 68 federal charges.

Thursday, Nov. 27, will mark 10 years since the shooting. The three victims killed in the attack include Jennifer Markovsky and Ke’Arre Stewart, both of whom were at the clinic to support others, and Police Officer Garrett Swasey.

In the years since Dear’s federal indictment in 2019, the court repeatedly tried to get him to a competent state so that he could help in his own defense at trial. 

In 2022, a judge ordered him to be forcibly mediated, which he appealed. The order was upheld by a federal appeals court in 2024.

Even with the forced medication, Dear was not brought back to competency.

Dear admitted guilt in several instances. In one courtroom, he declared himself a “warrior for the babies” and even said, “I'm guilty. There's no trial.” But he never made an official plea due to his competency. 

CPR News reached out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Missouri. Dear’s cause of death has not been made available.

For victims, a question of justice

Before Dear’s death, Jonathon Booth, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School, said the case tested a fundamental question of whether people who are mentally incapacitated in some way can be held responsible for their acts. 

“He has expressed various delusions openly in court,” Booth said. “I would say this is a case where he understands that he's on trial, he's admitted to the killings, but he is too delusional to actually help in his own defense.”

Dear’s admission of guilt makes this case different from other high-profile criminal cases — like the Boulder King Soopers shooting, where the shooter, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The 25-year-old killed 10 people at the store in March 2021. The jury rejected that defense and declared he was legally sane at the time of the shooting. Booth said that type of defense most likely would not have worked for Dear, as he was aware of what he was doing at the time. 

Alissa had also been deemed incompetent to stand trial. But after 20 months of hospitalization and forcible medication, he reached a state of competence that allowed him to participate in his own trial. Victims and family members of victims were allowed to address the court at Alissa’s sentencing after he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 life sentences and 48 years for each of the 38 attempted murder charges.

Booth said in a typical criminal case, a trial would bring punishment to the wrongdoer and allow the victims’ families to face the person who has harmed them.

That will never happen for Dear or the victims’ families. 

In a recent court proceeding on Nov. 13, state prosecutors had been waiting for the federal process to determine whether Dear should be placed in a long-term mental health hospital, according to 9News. 

If Dear had been civilly committed, Booth said he likely would have spent the rest of his life in that facility. That isn’t necessarily justice in the traditional sense. 

“It's different than actually receiving a guilty verdict,” Booth said. “Especially in this case, where there's not really any doubt that he did it. He's confessed.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct date of the shooting.