On August 4,2005, a lady whom my son Brent Thomas, had met online in a (chatroom several months back), was coming to Anderson to pick up my son and take him to her hoouse in Conway,SC for a few days. I had spoken to her on the phone several times, and she seemed nice.. She was 8 years older than Brent, she was 36 and he was 28. She talked to me as if she was just a friend or mom type relationship. My son was bipolar and had obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a recovering addict. I took my son's clothes I had washed for him to his apartment , that Wednesday night before. He said to me,"mama, wha does Dede want with me?She is all uppidy. She is a semi-pro boxer, owns a jewelry store, and her own accounting business. I said, "well Brent sometimes you might meet a true friend in thiis world". Besides, as good-looking as you are, anyone would want you." He never felt that way though. He was very shy and hard to tal to girls, afraid of rejection. I kept Brent;s money and paid his bills and etc., because he knew with his addictoin to crack cocaine, he couldn't trust himself with money. I told him I would bring him some money to take with him, but, I would give it t Dede to hold for him. He agreed. I came back at lunch the next day to meet Dede. She was ok I thought. We had lunch together and then theyn left for her house in Conway. I talked to Brent on their way back TO Anderson. Dede talked mostly, she said they had run into some hard rain and wanted me to look up the weather channell online to see if it was suppose to bad weather closer to here. My son got on the phone and said, "mama, Dede is going to have to hang up, she is driving all off the road and digging in her popcketbook like you do, and she is going to have a wreck". So we hung up That was the last words my son and I spoke before he died. On that Sunday August 7th, they returned to Brent's apartment in Anderson, and she was going to spend the night. THe next morning, Brent had a group at the Mental heath center for Bipolar disorder and drug addiction. They also give him drug test each Monday, and he would have to see the probate judge every Wednesday, who also gave drug test. He was mandated by the court to do this, because he had a 2nd offence of crack cocaine and would go to prison if he didn't finish the program. He had been doing very well and the probate judge and his counselors had even bragged on how well he had done. Well. Dede called me at about 9am that Monday and said she couldn't get Brent awake for his group. So, I went over there, not really alarmed, because Brent was always so hard to wake because of the meds he took for his bipolar disorder. I got there and he was lying in the floor in the den. Dede said she dragged him off the bed to see if she could get him in the shower. I heard him making a snoring sound so, I thought he was breathing, that he was in a deep sleep. I was clueless that he was in a coma. I watched his head, arms, and legs dangle and was unresponsive to me. I was so stupid! I didn't even realize my son was in a coma! I panicked, because I knew he had to be at his group at 10:00am and if he wasn't there, they would send him to prison. (A place I knew my son could never survive.) That was I was worried about! I put him on a blanket and we pulled him outside and got a guy who lived next to him to help lift him in my van. We then drove straight to the mental health center, thinking he wouild wake up by the time we got there, but, he didn't. Dede and I ran in and told the woman at the desk, that my son was suppopse to be in a group and asked if she knew where that group was? I told her I couldn't get my son awake. She tried paging the group leaders of Brent's group with no luck. We started running sround the center looking for the grouop, then I ran into a lady who said lets go and talk to the nurse, if you can't wake him. We did and she said for her to call EMS. She was on the phone with them, when one of his group leaders came out. He acteed angry at the lady for calling EMs, and told her to call him next time, and to hang up the phone and let me take him to the ER, because he would cost my son too much for EMS and we could get him there sooner. We ran out the door and got in my van and I asked Dede to get the back seat and see how Brent was. She did and she said"Her's not breathing, Diane, and he is turning blue!" I drove as fast as I could to the ER. When we got there, I jumped out and ran into the ER, straight to A DR. KIckam. I said my son is not breathing, I need a doctor out here, fast! I ran back outside and I thought the Dr. was following me, but when I tured arounf he was walking the other way, ignoring me. When I got outside a vistor from the parking lot, a pregnant nurse and a guard was trying to get m,y son on the stretcher. At this time, no one had started cpr, or done anysthing to try and save him. I was so disraught, I didn't know what was going on. I stood there quietley as my son was finally taken to the er. (Which was nothing like me! I am usually so out of control during the smallest thing, let long, watching my son, like that. When in the er, they started cpr and some ladies from patient advocate's office, started asking me if they could call someone for me. I couldn't get in touch with anyone in my familly, Finally, someone got my husband and he came. I told them to please don't stop cpr. Then they got his heart back after 14 minutes of cpr. I was still in some kind of denial or shock then. I was thinking to myself, he is okay. When the coounselor for the MHC came to check on hin, I said, "he's in a coma". Just like I would have said, He's got a toothache! One of my family members overheard Dr. Kickam say, "I don't know what it going to take to get through to thesse people, he is brain dead!" He was on a ventilator and after a long time thery sent him to ICU. AN internist came in to see him, And told me he had 30% chance to make it, and if he did, it was 70% chance he would be in a vegetative state. I told THe Dr. my would not want to live that way, and that he was an organ donor. He stayed on the ventilator from Monday until Thursday, when they did the final brain death test, and pronounced him dead. I was still acting so strange, I still think about it, and I can't fugure it out. They ttok his organs the next morning. After he died, I haved cried myself sick everyday, and it so hard to believe he is gone. I loved him so much always felt I had to protect him.

Dede acted like she had no idea what happened to him. However, my family, friends and I started getting suspicious of her, the night at the funeral home, she was falling asleep standing up, and making a snoring sound. Everyone was talking about it. I had no idea at this time because I was by Brent's side the whole time that evening. When we came home, Dede was going to stay with us and go to the funeral the next day. She asked if she could get online on my computer. I said sure. I left the room and came back in about 30 seconds, and she had conked ot on my keyboard and was snoring real loud. I went into my bedroom and looked in her purse and found a bottle with 3 40mg methadone wafers, 2 mepergan pain pills, and 1 dilaudid and some xanax. I took one of each pill. I said if my son's toxicology comes back in 5 weeks taht he died from methadone, I will know where he got it. Well, 5 weeks later, the deputy coroner called me and said he had died from methadone and that there was only a trace of it found. He said, he most likely died from 1 pill. I said yoou mean you can die from 1 pill? He said absolutely, if you are not already use to taking opiates. However, they put on his death certificate cause of death was accidental overdose. Dede has not been able to be found since I told her he died from methadone. I ASKED HER ,'WHERE DID BRENT GET METHADONE, DEDE? ' She said, "I don't know, I take methadone for my back, my doctor gives me 150 a month. " But, Brent didn't know it, we never discussed it., and I keep it put up." I had already talked to some people who knew her from the chatrooms, who said she was a compulsive liar,and was bad news. She had got online right after Brent died and said she gave Brent cpr in my van, which was a big lie! In fact, the Sunday night/early Monday am, he went in the coma, she knew he was in a very critical state, because she told online and to me and others, she tried to wake Brent at 5am(who knows why, because she said they didn't go to beed until 2am. One of hisonline friends, JD, called me ans said he wanted to know what really happened because she was telling all kind of lies in the chat room. He also said he had been knowing Dede a good while and she was nothing but a liar and con-artist, and that she was always slurring when she talked on voice chat. She told some people she tried to wake him at 8Am. She told me, whrn I asked her why she was trying to wake him aat 5am, she said she was trying to grt his password to his computer, so she could"clean it up". Which i would guess she was getting rid of anything she had typed to Brent aboout being on methadone. She was trying to save her own self rather than saving my son's life. When we got his computer, she had erased alot of archived messages she had sent him and even manipulated the clock on it back 2003. Now I have to live without my son, and his 8 year old daughter(who was 6 when he died)has to grow up without a daddy. My life will never be the same, because of my son meeting Dede and Dede giving him methadone.

Diane Horne