Dateline: After The Party - Who was Ashley Fallis and what happened to her? Disturbing details of the 2012 incident, revealed

NBC's Dateline: After The Party shares the disturbing story of the death of Colorado resident Ashley Fallis. Just after the New Year’s Eve party on December 31, 2011, Ashley Fallis, a 28-year-old respiratory therapist, succumbed to a gunshot. Ashley Fallis was at home with her husband Tom during the incident. While Tom was initially a suspect in the case, it was ruled as a suicide and he was acquitted of all charges.

The story captivated the entire country's attention as the trial brought forth the harrowing details of the case. Ashley’s parents did not believe that their daughter could commit suicide and blamed their son-in-law for her death.

Who was Ashley Fallis?

Ashley Fallis was a 28-year-old respiratory therapist at a rehabilitation hospital, who lived in Colorado. She was married to her high school sweetheart and had two daughters with him. The marriage, however, quickly came to an end.

Ashley met Tom Fallis in 2007, who seemed responsible and ready for a family. She became pregnant and had a son, Blake, a few months into her relationship with Tom. And soon after, the couple got married. Tom also adopted the two daughters after their birth father gave up his parental rights. Ashley lived with her husband, Tom Fallis, and their three children, Madelynn, Jolie, and Blake, who were all under the age of 10 at the time of the incident. A co-worker and friend of Ashley shared that she was a happy person who used to joke and laugh a lot.

Tom Wallis was a corrections officer with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office and worked at the local prison.

Blake, their youngest, was diagnosed with a chronic brain condition called hydrocephalus which required Ashley’s devoted care. The stress from this started affecting Ashley and Tom’s marriage.

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What happened to Ashley after the New Year’s Eve party?

Ashley and Tom Fallis had hosted a fun-filled New Year’s Eve party at their home on December 31, 2011. Ashley’s friends and family recall her dancing and laughing during the party.

At the party, she confided in her coworker that she had suffered a miscarriage earlier that day but that did not deter her spirits. According to Dateline, the coworker said,

“My impression of it was, she already has her beautiful family. It seems like her life was already complete, so I don’t think that she was devastated that she had found out that she had a miscarriage."

As the party was coming to an end, Ashley asked her uncle for marijuana. Tom got furious about it. He warned Ashley against it and reminded her that she has to go through a drug test at work regularly.

Ashley’s mother, Jenna Fox recalled,

"He walks by me and says that he hated us all and wished we would bleeping die and he went into the bedroom and slammed the door."

Tom claims that after everyone left, Ashley and he got into a frenzied argument and she shot herself in the moment of heat. Tom immediately called 911 for help. He is heard shouting on his call,

"My wife just shot herself in the head. Please, help me. Please help me."

Fox and Ashley’s stepdad, Joel Raguindin, arrived back at the house and learnt that she has been shot. Ashley later died at the hospital.

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Did Ashley commit suicide?

Tom shared with the police that Ashley has had suicidal thoughts before the incident and felt that maybe the miscarriage triggered her to take the drastic step. He told an Evans Police detective,

“I was in the closet, I heard her gun cock and I looked out, I was like, I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And before I even had a chance to finish my sentence or close the door. There was smoke. I hear—I heard it, and there was just smoke.”

Fox could not believe that their daughter committed suicide, especially since they saw her in a cheery mood minutes before the incident. She told the police,

“We had just seen them seven minutes before this, she was completely fine. You know, she wouldn’t do anything like this.”

Ashley’s parents blamed Tom and claimed that he would have killed her in a fit of rage.

After much investigation, the Evans Police Department stated that Ashley’s death was a suicide.

Tom later moved with his children to Indiana to start afresh.

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Tom Fallis faces charges and gets acquitted

Two years after Ashley’s death, a reporter’s investigation into the episode prompted the police to reopen the case. As per the report, the couple’s neighbor, Nick Glover, who was 15 years old during the incident, heard Tom confess to killing Ashley that night as he stood in his front lawn and said, ‘I shot my wife.’

Tom returned to Colorado to face charges after a grand jury indicted him for second-degree murder. During the trial, Glover and his mother revealed a story from another teenager in the neighbourhood sharing that she had heard Ashley shout ‘get off of me’ just after midnight. But when the said neighbour was called to testify, she said she was intoxicated that night and did not remember it.

The defence went on to share a letter that Ashley wrote to Tom a few months before. She allegedly wrote,

“I have so much pain on the inside I can no longer take it. I’m sorry to do this to you and the kids but I find myself not even liking my children.”

She continued,

“I do love them. I just can’t take this life any longer.”

The jury took just about four hours to reach their verdict. Tom was acquitted of all charges.

Ashley’s family continued to stand by their stance and even sued the investigators for allegedly tampering with key evidence. The case was dismissed in 2017.

Jenna Fox and Joel Raguindin have visitation rights to the children, who remain in Tom Fallis’s custody in Indiana.

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