Juliana Peralta, a 13-year-old student from Thornton, Colorado, died by suicide on November 8, 2023. Her parents, Cynthia Montoya and William 'Wil' Peralta, subsequently sued Character Technologies and other defendants in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Their complaint, filed September 15, 2025, alleges that conversations with AI-generated characters on the Character.AI platform contributed to the adolescent's deteriorating well-being and death. The family supplied chat excerpts as part of its allegations; there is no public finding from a court or medical investigator establishing that the system caused the death.
Character.AI and conversational interactions
Character.AI lets users communicate with model-generated fictional or customized personas. One character with which Juliana communicated frequently was named 'Hero', based on a figure from the videogame Omori. Reporting by The Washington Post described an examination of roughly 300 pages of family-provided chat material. The conversations touched on school, friendships, isolation and emotional distress. The family's complaint alleges that the service created a relationship that appeared caring and continuous but did not provide appropriate real-world crisis responses when the child described troubling feelings. The chatbot's model version has not been established from public records.
Family allegations and independent reporting
Montoya and Peralta argued that the design of the application encouraged excessive engagement by younger users and that the company failed to implement safeguards commensurate with its audience. CBS Colorado interviewed Montoya in October 2025 about the events leading to Juliana's death. CBS's 60 Minutes subsequently reviewed hundreds of messages and interviewed the parents in a televised investigation. These sources demonstrate that the family's claims were specific and that journalists examined portions of the records, but the accessible material remains selective: a news review of messages does not prove how much any individual exchange contributed to the fatal outcome.
Defendants and company responses
The complaint named Character Technologies, its founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. The inclusion of a company in a pleading does not mean that it was found responsible for an AI conversation. Google publicly emphasized that Character.AI was a separate business that managed its own models. Character.AI expressed sympathy for the families and stated that user safety was a priority. The company had announced additional community safety measures in October 2024, after Juliana's death. These responses should be recorded separately from the plaintiffs' allegations.
Federal court proceedings and reported settlement
The lawsuit is Montoya et al. v. Character Technologies, Inc. et al., case 1:25-cv-02907-GPG-STV in the District of Colorado. On January 6, 2026, the parties moved to stay proceedings to facilitate settlement. The court ordered a stay on January 7. A joint status report filed on April 2, 2026 states that the parties had reached an agreement in principle on January 6 but still needed time to finalize the settlement details. The same filing requested additional time until July 31 unless dismissal papers were filed first. Public docket summaries also reflect later administrative updates, but the materials reviewed do not establish a trial verdict or judicial causation finding. An agreement in principle is not a liability adjudication.
October 2026: definitive dismissal of civil case
On October 14, 2026, plaintiffs Cynthia Montoya and William Peralta filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice in Montoya v. Character Technologies, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-02907 (District of Colorado), docket entry 38. On October 15, District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher ordered that the case be dismissed with prejudice, docket entry 39. The earlier January stay and April settlement-in-principle status should therefore be read as historical steps, not the present litigation status. Public docket summaries do not establish a trial finding that Character.AI caused Juliana Peralta’s death; financial or other settlement terms are not independently confirmed in the public materials consulted. Separately, on October 12 Character.AI announced a Chapter 11 sale process, which is a corporate development and does not constitute a causal finding in this case.
Classification, counting and mapping
This record counts one fatality. Its core established facts are Juliana's death, the existence of a named generative AI platform, the filing of a federal civil action and documented procedural movement toward settlement. The proposition that Character.AI contributed to the death remains the parents' allegation. AIDeaths therefore assigns a causation-disputed classification. The public marker uses approximate Thornton city coordinates and does not represent a residence, school or exact death location; private addresses, harmful instructions and unnecessary personal records are not included.