FRIEND CHARGED IN OVERDOSE DEATH OF GIRL, 13

HASTINGS -- Nearly a year after a 13-year-old Shelbyville girl died
of a drug overdose, authorities have charged a 15-year-old former
classmate with giving her the pills that caused her death.

Susan Falvo, 15, is charged with delivery of a controlled substance
causing death. She also is accused of possessing methadone, vicodin
and marijuana.

Two of those prescription drugs -- methadone and vicodin -- were
found in the body of Falvo's friend, Lexy Purdum, when she died in
her home May 6.

After a lengthy state police investigation, Falvo was charged in
Barry County Juvenile Court on Feb. 20. Initially released to her
parents' custody, Falvo, also of Shelbyville, was back in court
Monday on reports she violated the terms of her release by drinking
and missing school. She now remains jailed in the county's juvenile
detention center.

Barry County Prosecutor Tom Evans said by charging Falvo in juvenile
court, he hopes to save her from Purdum's fate. Being charged as a
juvenile also could spare her the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence.

A conviction as an adult for the drug delivery charge would carry a
possible punishment of life in prison.

"No one is going to prison for a number of years," Evans said. "Our
goal is to have this person not wind up like Lexy. We are just trying
to do our best to intervene."

If Falvo is convicted, she could become a ward of the court, be
placed on intensive probation or be put into some type of residential
treatment facility.

"I hope I don't seem too grim here, but they're little kids and this
is awful," Evans said.

Evans said Falvo "has a problem with drugs and that is the main
reason we're pursuing this case."

He said listening to the 911 calls made when Purdum's family
discovered the eighth-grader's body were sobering.

"I know I only experienced a tiny, tiny portion of what Lexy's folks
had to deal with. It was really heartbreaking to listen to the 911
call and read the autopsy and think of this 13-year-old girl on a
metal slab, and we don't want that to happen," Evans said.

Lexy Purdum, a student at Delton Kellogg Middle School, died three
days shy of her 14th birthday. At the time, her family said the teen
was recovering from a yearlong battle with drugs. The day before her
death, she went on a shopping trip. When she came home, family
members said, she showed signs of using drugs. Her mother, Valerie
Purdum, went to awaken her around 12:30 p.m. the following day and
found her dead.

"She took vicodin and methadone pills and she had a very high level
of methadone in her body at the time she died," Evans said. Purdum
died of a "mixed-drug intoxication," according to her autopsy report,
police said.

When he became prosecutor last fall, Evans said, he discovered the
state police investigation into her death still had some loose ends.
Authorities at the Hastings post finished their work in December.

He described Purdum as a girl who "seemed to have a wide-open future.
She was intelligent, creative and this is terribly sad."

Neither Purdum nor Falvo had court records. Their families could not
be reached for comment.