In the pre-dawn hours of October 28, 2022, a confrontation in an Aurora, Colorado, parking lot ended with the shooting death of Rachel Holmes. The 46-year-old woman was found on the ground near a semi-truck around 2:30 a.m. in a strip mall lot at 6360 South Parker Road. First responders arrived to find Holmes, who was pronounced dead at the scene from a single gunshot wound.
The man who shot her, an Iowa-based truck driver named John David Thoren III, called 911 moments after firing his weapon. Thoren, then 44, told police he had been sleeping in his truck’s cab when Holmes woke him by throwing rocks at the driver's side of his vehicle. According to Thoren, he warned her to stop, showed her his 9mm firearm, and threatened to shoot if she continued.
He claimed that Holmes then looked angry and rushed toward his truck, causing him to fire out of fear for his safety.
Thoren cooperated with the investigation, but detectives noted discrepancies in his account of the shooting. He also told them he could have driven away but was too scared. Investigators found large landscaping rocks near the semi, but they observed only minimal damage to the truck itself. Thoren, who did not know Holmes, did not render aid after shooting her. An inquiry into Holmes's background revealed she was homeless, mentally ill, and had been released from jail just four days earlier on a personal recognizance bond after an arrest for disturbing the peace.
Thoren was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty, and his case went to a jury trial. Prosecutors argued that deadly force was not justified, stating that Thoren could have called 911 or driven to a safe location instead of confronting Holmes with a gun. After a four-day trial, a jury in April 2024 found John David Thoren III guilty of second-degree murder and a sentence-enhancing charge of violent crime/use of a weapon.
At his sentencing hearing in July 2024, a prosecutor told the court that although Holmes was estranged from her family, "she was not disposable. She did not deserve to die and she didn’t have to die." The judge, balancing Thoren’s clean criminal record and military service as an Iraq War veteran against the act of taking a life, sentenced him to 22 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, to be followed by five years of mandatory parole. Thoren was also ordered to pay for Holmes's funeral expenses.
