Chuck E. Cheese Shooting: Victims, Trial, and Commutation

The Chuck E. Cheese shooting in Aurora, Colorado happened on the night of December 14, 1993, when 19-year-old Nathan Dunlap, a former cook at the restaurant, hid in the men’s bathroom until closing, then shot five employees, killing four. Dunlap was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996, but he was never executed. Governor John Hickenlooper granted him an indefinite reprieve in 2013, and Governor Jared Polis commuted his sentence to life in prison without parole in 2020, the same day Polis signed the law abolishing capital punishment in Colorado.¹

What Happened That Night

Dunlap started working as a cook at the Aurora Chuck E. Cheese in May 1993. He was fired in late July after arguing with a supervisor about staying past his shift. Prosecutors later said he told friends he had been made “a fool of” and planned to “get even,” discussing robbing the restaurant and killing the supervisor.²

On December 14, eleven days before Christmas, Dunlap came to the restaurant carrying a concealed semiautomatic handgun. He slipped into the men’s restroom and waited until the restaurant closed and only the closing crew remained. The supervisor he had been targeting was not working that night. He shot the employees anyway.²

Investigators said Dunlap confronted and shot two workers, shot a third in a hallway, wounded a fourth in the kitchen, and shot the night manager in her office.³ All five victims were shot in the head. Dunlap then stole about $1,500 in cash and a handful of game tokens.⁴

The Victims

Four people were killed:

Sylvia Kathlene Crowell, 19, a full-time employee and 1993 graduate of Gateway High School who was studying at Metropolitan State College.
Colleen O’Connor, 17, a senior at Eaglecrest High School.
Benjamin Grant, 17, a junior at Smoky Hill High School who had been working at the restaurant for about two weeks.
Margaret “Marge” Kohlberg, 50, the night manager, employed at the restaurant since November 1, 1993.⁵

The sole survivor was Bobby Stephens, a 20-year-old dishwasher. Dunlap shot him in the face in the kitchen. The bullet knocked him down but did not kill him. He stayed still until Dunlap left, then pulled himself up, escaped through the back door, and ran to nearby apartments where he called police.⁴ He was taken to Denver General Hospital and needed reconstructive surgery.³

How Dunlap Was Caught

Aurora police identified Dunlap quickly as a fired former kitchen worker. Aurora Police Investigative Division Chief Mike Stiers told reporters at the time that Dunlap appeared to have “held a grudge over his firing.”³

He was arrested roughly 12 hours after the shooting, on December 15, and led police to a gym bag stashed outside a building near his mother’s home. Inside were the semiautomatic handgun, six rounds of ammunition, and a pair of gloves.⁶

Trial and Death Sentence

Dunlap was charged on December 23, 1993, with four counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, four counts of felony murder, attempted first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, first-degree assault, aggravated robbery, theft, and three violent-crime sentencing counts.⁷

His trial began January 12, 1996. A friend, Carl Wilson, testified that on the day of the shooting Dunlap told him his “mind was made up” and that he was going to “go to Chuck E Cheese, kill them all, and take the money.” Afterward, Dunlap told Wilson, “I did it. Chuck E Cheese.” His girlfriend overheard him asking how to remove gunshot residue, and he was seen washing his hands with hydrogen peroxide. Bobby Stephens also testified, describing how Dunlap burst into the kitchen and shot him.⁷

On February 26, 1996, the jury found Dunlap guilty on all counts. In the penalty phase, prosecutors presented his criminal history, including prior armed robberies, gang involvement, a drive-by shooting attempt, drug sales, threats against witnesses, and an attempted jail escape. They also introduced a tattoo Dunlap got after the murders showing a smoking gun captioned “By Any Means Necessary.”⁸ The jury found seven aggravating factors for each victim, including that the murders were committed while lying in wait, during an aggravated robbery, and for pecuniary gain.⁹

The defense’s mitigation case focused on Dunlap’s childhood: testimony that his stepfather had been physically abusive, that his mother had bipolar disorder, and that he knew his stepfather had sexually abused his sister. The defense also pointed to his age and an offer to plead guilty in exchange for four life sentences.¹⁰

The jury found 28 aggravating factors and concluded the mitigating factors did not outweigh them. On March 7, 1996, it returned four verdicts of death. On May 17, 1996, the trial court sentenced Dunlap to death on the murder counts and to consecutive prison terms totaling 113 years on the other counts.⁷

Years of Appeals

Dunlap’s conviction and death sentence were upheld at every stage. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the sentence on direct appeal in 1999, finding that a penalty-phase evidentiary error was harmless.⁸ The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. A motion to reduce his sentence was rejected in 2001. In 2007, after 52 days of hearings, the Colorado Supreme Court denied his post-conviction claims, including ineffective assistance of counsel.¹¹ On April 16, 2012, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of his federal habeas petition.⁹

By 2013, Dunlap had exhausted his guaranteed appeals, and an execution date was set for the week of August 18, 2013.

Hickenlooper’s 2013 Reprieve

On May 22, 2013, Governor John Hickenlooper granted Dunlap an indefinite reprieve, staying the execution. Hickenlooper said his decision was about the system, not about Dunlap’s guilt. “If the State of Colorado is going to undertake the responsibility of executing a human being, the system must operate flawlessly,” he wrote. “Colorado’s system for capital punishment is not flawless.”¹²

He cited studies showing the death penalty was applied inconsistently in Colorado, the state’s lack of lethal-injection drugs, a national move away from capital punishment, and what he called a “legitimate question whether we as a state should be taking lives.”¹³ The reprieve was not clemency. It did not change Dunlap’s sentence; it delayed his execution indefinitely, remaining in effect until Hickenlooper or a future governor lifted it.¹⁴

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler accused Hickenlooper of lacking “courage” and “leadership” and called the governor Dunlap’s “guardian angel.”¹² Bob Crowell, the father of Sylvia Crowell, called the reprieve “backdoor clemency.”¹⁵ Other family members compared the delay to “having a knife stuck in your back.”

Commutation and the End of Colorado’s Death Penalty

On March 23, 2020, Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 20-100, making Colorado the 22nd state to abolish capital punishment. The repeal applied to cases charged on or after July 1, 2020, and did not automatically affect existing death row inmates.¹

The same day, Polis used his executive clemency authority to commute the sentences of Colorado’s three remaining death row prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole: Nathan Dunlap, Robert Ray, and Sir Mario Owens. Polis did not identify them by name in the clemency orders, referring to them only by their Department of Corrections offender numbers.¹⁶ He said the commutations were “consistent with the abolition of the death penalty in the state of Colorado, and consistent with the recognition that the death penalty cannot be, and never has been, administered equitably in the state of Colorado.”¹

Brauchler again objected, saying he had not been consulted and that appeals for two of the three inmates were still pending.¹⁷ Nathan Dunlap is now serving life without parole in the Colorado Department of Corrections. No one has been executed in Colorado since 1997.¹⁸

The Survivor and the Families

Bobby Stephens endured years of physical and psychological aftermath. Beyond the reconstructive surgery on his face, he battled severe post-traumatic stress. The sound of a vacuum cleaner, which he associated with what he heard while working the night of the attack, could make him physically ill. He struggled in public spaces, had flashbacks, and stayed hypervigilant about watching people’s hands. At one point he attempted suicide.⁴

Stephens moved briefly to Arizona to escape media attention, was recognized by a coworker, and eventually returned to Colorado. As of 2019, he was living in Colorado Springs, working, and raising four sons. He called the quarter-century of legal proceedings a “political circus” and a “game.” His feelings about Dunlap’s punishment were divided: part of him believed death was the appropriate “eye for an eye” outcome the jury had chosen, while another part said he would feel “relieved” if the sentence were commuted to life so the ordeal could end.⁴

Jodie McNally-Damore, mother of Colleen O’Connor, said she believed Dunlap should stay in prison rather than be executed: “Let him suffer and think about what he did. Let him rot.”¹⁵ Others wrote to Hickenlooper expressing a shared wish to “put this to rest,” whatever the final outcome looked like.⁴

1
Colorado Sun. Colorado Death Penalty Repeal
2
Findlaw. People v. Dunlap, 975 P.2d 723
3
Virginia Tech Scholar Library. Roanoke Times Coverage, December 16, 1993
4
Colorado Sun. Bobby Stephens, Nathan Dunlap, and Colorado’s Death Penalty
5
Denver Post. Slaughter in Aurora: The Victims
6
Denver7. Wednesday Marks 29 Years Since Mass Shooting at Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora
7
vLex. People v. Dunlap, 975 P.2d 723
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Justia. People v. Dunlap, 975 P.2d 723
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Dunlap v. Clements, No. 10-1424
10
Findlaw. People v. Dunlap, Crim. P. 35(b) Decision
11
Findlaw. Dunlap v. People, 2007
12
ABC News. Colorado Governor Delays Aurora Chuck E. Cheese Killer’s Execution
13
Death Penalty Information Center. Colorado Governor Indefinitely Stays Execution Over Concerns About Flawed System
14
The Guardian. Colorado Governor Delays Execution
15
CNN. Death Row Stories: Nathan Dunlap
16
American Bar Association. Colorado Abolishes Death Penalty
17
Courthouse News Service. Colorado Governor Spares Last Inmates on Death Row
18
Death Penalty Information Center. Colorado – Death Penalty Information Center