A gun cleaned in a parked car: how the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office pieced together the shooting
On May 1, 2025, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of Ebenezer Worku, 20 years old, in connection with the shooting. According to an affidavit obtained by KDVR, Worku had stopped his car in the middle of the street where James lived.
Worku told investigators he was attempting to clean a gun his adopted uncle had given him as a birthday gift on April 11 when he accidentally fired it twice through the open car window, in the direction of James’ house. He claimed he had no idea anyone had been hurt and drove away, turning off his headlights to avoid drawing attention.
Worku also claimed to investigators that he suffers from “homicidal schizophrenia.” After learning that someone had died, he reportedly showed signs of emotional distress and told police: “I did it, and I’m getting punished for it…put me in jail.”
First-degree murder charge and a $1.25 million bond
Worku was charged with first-degree murder under the legal classification of “extreme indifference,” with a cash-only bond set at $1.25 million. He is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
For Ashley James, the charge brings no comfort to a grief that defies logic. As she wrote in her statement: “It feels like a cruel joke that she was taken from us in such a senseless and violent way, when she did nothing but fight for her life since she was 29-years-old.”
Ashley James said she hopes to carry her mother’s resilience forward in her memory — the defining quality of a woman who spent twenty years refusing to be defined by illness, only to be taken by a bullet she never saw coming.
