TLDR
A Uinta County judge has refused to end a homicide case where a son claims he shot his father in lawful self-defense after a day of drinking, threats, and a late-night confrontation at a locked bedroom door.
The case of 23-year-old Ethan Grasse, accused of killing his 49-year-old father, Michael Grasse, in November 2025, is now set for a May 12th trial in Uinta County District Court. According to Law & Crime and Cowboy State Daily, the defense argued that the shooting should be deemed justified self-defense as a matter of law, but the judge disagreed.
Pretrial Bid to End Case Falls Short
Grasse is charged with second-degree murder, which alleges that he intentionally caused his father’s death without legal justification. In a recent hearing, his public defender asked Judge James Kaste to dismiss the charge, arguing that the evidence showed a justified shooting in response to ongoing threats and a forced entry.
According to reporting from Law & Crime, Judge Kaste ruled that the case would not be thrown out at this early stage. However, he stated that Grasse’s team could still present a self-defense theory to jurors. That leaves the ultimate decision about whether deadly force was reasonable under the circumstances to a trial rather than a preliminary dismissal.
Night of the Shooting, as Described in Records
Court documents and police accounts, described by Cowboy State Daily, depict a volatile home in Uinta County on November 21st and 22nd, 2025. Investigators say Michael Grasse was drinking heavily when he insisted on leaving to get food, prompting his son to drive him and then park his own vehicle to block his father’s car.
When Michael allegedly tried to move trash cans to get around that blockade, an argument turned physical until Michael’s mother intervened. Police say Ethan left to look for another place to stay, then bought a locking doorknob at Walmart, returned home, took his father’s keys and phone, emptied several bottles of whiskey, and locked himself in his bedroom while his father slept on a couch.
Text Messages and Conflicting Accounts
According to the court filings, Michael later banged on his son’s bedroom door around 10 p.m., threatened to break it down, and vowed to harm him. Ethan reportedly told his father he would return the keys and phone when he was sober, and then texted his grandmother at 10:44 p.m., warning that “if he tries to break into my room i will defend myself.”
Police say that at about 3:30 a.m. on November 22nd, 2025, someone again pounded on Ethan’s locked door. Grasse, who said he was not wearing his glasses, retrieved a .22-caliber handgun and fired multiple shots through the door as it was forced open. In later written statements, he claimed he “did not mean to kill any one just defend myself from an unknown intruder,” a description prosecutors will likely contrast with hours of documented conflict involving his father.
Emergency responders took Michael Grasse to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:22 a.m. Ethan called 911 after hearing his father moan, according to police accounts summarized in the reporting.
The legal question for jurors will center on whether Ethan reasonably believed he faced an imminent threat of serious harm and whether shooting through a closed door met Wyoming’s standard for justified self-defense. The message to his grandmother may be used to argue both his fear and his anticipation of using deadly force.
For now, Grasse remains in the Uinta County Jail awaiting his May 12th trial date. Unless the case is resolved through a plea, a jury will have to weigh his self-defense claim against the prosecution’s theory of an unlawful killing inside a family home.
