Court filings describe a day of drinking, a locked bedroom door and a text warning sent hours before gunfire.

EVANSTON, Wyo. — What began as a son’s effort to keep his father from driving drunk ended in a fatal shooting inside their shared home, with prosecutors charging 23-year-old Ethan Grasse in the death of his father, Michael Grasse, 49.

The case matters now because a Wyoming judge has refused to throw out the charge before trial, but has left the self-defense claim alive for jurors to weigh. Court records described by local reports say Ethan Grasse tried to block his father from leaving in a car after heavy drinking on Nov. 21, 2025, then later shot through a bedroom door after saying he feared someone was breaking in.

According to filings described in court reporting, Michael Grasse had been drinking heavily that day and wanted to drive out for food. Ethan Grasse drove him instead, then parked behind his father’s vehicle when they returned home. Later, Ethan heard trash cans being moved and believed his father was trying to clear space to drive around him. When Ethan threatened to call police if his father drove intoxicated, the two fought, and the fight ended only after Ethan’s grandmother intervened. Ethan then left the house, tried to find somewhere else to stay, and eventually went to Walmart to buy a locking doorknob for his bedroom. By the time he returned, the filings say, his father was passed out on the couch.

The defense account says Ethan Grasse then took his father’s keys and phone and poured out whiskey while Michael Grasse was unconscious. He installed the new lock and went to bed. Around 10 p.m., the filings say, Michael woke up, went to Ethan’s door and threatened to “kick” his son if he did not return the items. Ethan said he would hand them back when his father was sober. At 10:44 p.m., Ethan sent his grandmother a text saying he could hear threats through the wall and that, if someone tried to break into his room, he would defend himself. That message has become one of the most closely watched pieces of evidence because it captured his fear hours before the shooting and fixed a timeline that both sides can use.

The shooting came in the early hours of Nov. 22. Police affidavits described in local coverage say Ethan Grasse woke around 3:30 or 4 a.m. to the sound of someone breaking through the bedroom door. The defense has said he was not wearing his thick prescription glasses and could see only the outline of a person entering the room. He reached for a .22-caliber handgun kept in the bedroom and fired three shots toward the door. After hearing a moan, the filings say, he put on his glasses and called 911. Michael Grasse was taken to Evanston Regional Hospital and pronounced dead at 4:22 a.m. Officers later recovered a Taurus pistol, three spent shell casings and one live round remaining in the chamber, according to an evidentiary affidavit summarized in reporting.

The case has also drawn attention because it grew out of a private family clash rather than a street confrontation or a break-in by a stranger. Ethan Grasse wrote in a release request that he “did not mean to kill any one” and believed he was defending himself from an unknown intruder. Prosecutors, however, charged him with second-degree murder and kept the case on a path toward trial. The differing accounts leave key questions unresolved: whether Michael Grasse was still threatening violence when he reached the door, whether Ethan had reason to think the person entering was not his father, and whether firing through a closed or partly breached door was a legally reasonable response under Wyoming law.

The legal fight has sharpened in recent months. On Jan. 29, Assistant Public Defender Tammy Fields asked the court to dismiss the case on self-defense grounds, arguing that Ethan used reasonable force to prevent serious bodily injury while inside his own bedroom. Uinta County District Court Judge James Kaste rejected that request in March, finding that the defense had not made a strong enough early showing to end the prosecution before trial. Still, Kaste said that ruling does not stop Ethan Grasse from arguing self-defense before a jury. That split outcome kept the murder charge in place while preserving the defense theme that is likely to define the case when testimony begins.

Where the case stands now is clear: Ethan Grasse remains jailed in Uinta County, and a four-day jury trial is scheduled to begin May 12. The next milestone is whether jurors accept the state’s murder theory or the defense claim that a son, alone behind a locked door, reacted to what he believed was a violent entry in the dark.

Author note: Last updated April 13, 2026.