The apparent fatal drug overdose of a Naperville high school senior at a weekend gathering in the city remained under investigation Tuesday, with police detectives attempting to determine how the 18-year-old woman came to ingest several caplets of a dangerous hallucinogen.
Sara Aeschlimann thought she was taking the “club drug” Ecstasy with two friends in a home in the 300 block of Carriage Hill Drive, police said, but investigators late Tuesday said laboratory work showed the pills actually contained the powerful amphetamine variant paramethoxyamphetamine, or PMA.
Aeschlimann of the 2200 block of Barth Avenue took several pills before 10 a.m. Sunday, authorities said, and by 3:35 p.m., she had been pronounced dead at Edward Hospital in Naperville. Investigators said PMA often is passed off as Ecstasy, but can cause convulsions, coma and death in high doses.
Garrett Harth, 21, of the Carriage Hill Drive address, was being held Tuesday on drug charges in connection with the incident, though police said Harth bought the drug believing it was Ecstasy. Harth, being held at DuPage County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bond, was charged with unlawful delivery of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver.
Investigators said no charges were pending that would hold Harth criminally responsible for Aeschlimann’s death.
Investigators said they were checking two possible sources of the drug and will track the pills to their original provider. “We’re going to go as far as we can go,” said Naperville Police Sgt. Ray McGury.
Police said the pills in question are slightly larger than a standard aspirin and are known on the street as “Double-stack White Mitsubishi” because they are stamped with the three-diamond logo of the Japanese company. Technicians at the DuPage County crime lab on Tuesday analyzed some of the pills recovered from the residence and were running tests on Aeschlimann’s blood, investigators said.
Police said PMA is known for effects similar to those produced by ingesting LSD. The synthetic substance is produced exclusively for the illicit drug market in clandestine labs, authorities said.
A senior at Naperville Central High School, Aeschlimann was known as outgoing and outdoorsy, a teenager who liked spending time in nature preserves in addition to spending time with her friends, her close friend Corey Minkanic said.
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“She just got mixed up in some things she shouldn’t have,” he said.
The signs of grief were evident Tuesday at the Aeschlimann home–an above-average number of cars parked outside, a friend bearing boxes of tissues, a florist’s delivery.
Inside, Aeschlimann’s parents planned a funeral at a time when they might have expected to plan a celebration for their only child’s graduation. At Naperville Central, students wrote farewells on a banner, echoes of what they might have written in Aeschlimann’s senior yearbook: “We love and miss you,” “Thanks for helping me in Earth science freshman year,” “I didn’t know you too well, but I always admired your smile.”
Aeschlimann’s parents declined to comment, as did the Harth family.
The alleged circumstances of the teen’s death raised frightening questions in Naperville.
“Naperville is supposed to be a wonderful place to raise our children, but the drugs are everywhere,” said Dianna Sheets as she came to meet Minkanic, her son, at the Aeschlimann home Tuesday.
Indeed, students said so in an article in the school newspaper just last month, which proclaimed Ecstasy “the most popular club drug in Naperville.”
“I never thought teenagers seriously believed they were invincible. But in this aspect, it’s true,” student Heidi Snapp wrote. “The trend will never die. But the followers will.”
Aeschlimann is the first student in the Naperville school system to die of drug-related causes since February 1999, when a 16-year-old Lisle boy lost his life to a heroin overdose.
Police were called to the Carriage Hill Drive residence about 10 a.m. Sunday. Two men, including Harth, also required medical treatment. Both were treated at Edward Hospital and released.
Teens are drawn to Ecstasy because it’s relatively cheap and has the reputation of being safe and fun, said Michael Hillebrand of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago. But the drug has its own negative side effects, authorities said, and a user can never be sure exactly what the pills contain.
Ecstasy typically sells for about $20 to $30 a pill in Naperville.
The drug’s active ingredient, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is known for its psychedelic effects.
Drug experts said MDMA can cause nausea, faintness, high blood pressure and heart arrhythmia, but fatal overdoses are rare.
The DEA reports that most of the Ecstasy sold in the U.S. under names such as XTC and Clarity is manufactured in labs in Belgium and other parts of Western Europe.
Hillebrand said the local supply typically is shipped through New York in overnight mail packages.
One especially troubling aspect of the drug’s production, Hillebrand said, is the fact it is often combined with substances other than just MDMA.
The pills can feature chemical binding and coloring agents, he said, as well as other active ingredients designed to give the pills an “extra kick.”
“It can be mixed with anything from caffeine to another amphetamine or another type of stimulant the maker might have around,” Hillebrand said. “He could mix it with battery acid or LSD. There obviously are no controls.”
Naperville police said Ecstasy has grown in popularity in the city since last summer. Sgt. Robert Guerrieri, supervisor of the department’s Special Enforcement Unit, said the drug often is brought to Naperville by teens who attend all-night parties in Chicago and frequent city nightclubs.
Police said they were hopeful Tuesday that Naperville teens were becoming aware that ingesting “Double-stack White Mitsubishi” could be extremely dangerous. “We are hoping that the information is getting out through word of mouth in these circles,” Guerrieri said.
An average Ecstasy pill contains less than 20 percent MDMA, experts said. Hillebrand said he was not immediately familiar with the Mitsubishi-logo pill, but said the DEA in Chicago has recorded more than 120 different pill designs in circulation.