HUNTSVILLE TEEN'S DRUG DEATH SPURS FAMILY, STUDENTS CRUSADE TO EDUCATE

Mother, classmates warn of dangers of mixing painkillers

The alarm clock was on top of a stack of encyclopedias. It rang at 11 a.m.

Next to the clock, Hunter Stephenson, a 16-year-old with blond hair and
green eyes, lay in a queen bed with an antique mahogany headboard.

He had set the alarm before dawn on the morning of Aug. 6, intent on
changing a chemistry class that afternoon before orientation for rising
juniors at Huntsville High School.

Candy, his mother, and her younger daughter, Paige, were sitting in a
hallway as the alarm clock rang for a minute or two. They were in an area of
the upstairs that the family calls a computer room.

Hunter had been in this room until 3:45 that morning. He had talked with his
girlfriend, a Grissom High School cheerleader, before heading to his bedroom
at the front of the upstairs hall.

Hearing the alarm drone on, Candy and Paige walked down the hall to check on
Hunter, the youngest of the Stephensons' three children. Entering the room,
Candy thought Hunter appeared peaceful, as if he were sleeping, but she knew
he wasn't asleep after touching him.

Candy began administering CPR. Paige called 911.

"What did he take?'' a paramedic asked after arriving at the Stephensons'
home on Calhoun Street in downtown Huntsville.

Paige called Hunter's girlfriend, searching for clues. Frantically, the
girlfriend called a Huntsville High student.

She pressed the student for information, shouting as she told him what had
happened. She suspected the student had given Hunter drugs.

"Don't use my name,'' the student finally told her, "but it was methadone.''

Just before 12:30 that afternoon, Hunter Stephenson was pronounced dead at
Huntsville Hospital.

At the hospital, Alex Pederson, Hunter's best friend and doubles partner on
the Huntsville High tennis team, approached Huntsville High tennis coach
Lynne Abernathy.

Grabbing Abernathy by the shoulders, Pederson told her, "This is not Hunter.
This is a mistake.''

'He had it made'

Hunter Stephenson stood about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 130 pounds
after a recent growth spurt.

He bagged groceries at Star Market in Five Points during the summer, cheered
for Auburn University's football and basketball teams during the fall and
winter, and played singles for the Huntsville High tennis team during the
spring.

He had his own fishing boat at the family's lake house in Scottsboro, his
own television in his bedroom and his own 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, a 16th
birthday present from his parents.

"He had it made,'' his father, Charlie, said one day last month, surveying
his son's bedroom, the loss deep in his voice.

Charlie, who owns a debris removal company, passed on his love of sports to
Hunter. When Hunter came home the night before his death, they sat at a
computer as midnight neared, discussing Auburn football recruiting tidbits
on the Internet.

Now deprived of his son, Charlie wants to apprehend the dealer who gave
drugs to Hunter on the night of Aug. 5.

"I want to pressure them,'' he said.

Rattling off a small network of suspected dealers - two high school students
and two college students - Charlie focuses on one Huntsville High student.

Charlie believes he is the dealer responsible for giving methadone to
Hunter. The first hint of the dealer's identity came on the afternoon of
Hunter's death, after the Stephensons returned from the hospital.

For hours, Charlie and Candy stood in their front yard, greeting a stream of
mourners. By Charlie's count, six parents and grandparents gave him the name
of the dealer responsible for their son's drug problem.

The same name surfaced over and over. Charlie heard the name again that
night, this time from two students who said they were with Hunter when he
received methadone in the back yard of a home in northeast Huntsville.

"I want the guilty parties to pay the price,'' Charlie said. "The people
dealing drugs should be given prison time, not jail time.''

Candy, a former child-abuse social worker, is more interested in educating
Hunter's classmates and their parents about the dangers of drugs, mainly
painkillers.

"It's too late to help Hunter,'' she said. "All those kids at Huntsville
High belong to us. It's up to us to protect them. It's not too late for
them.''

'Be a friend - save a life'

On the morning of Sept. 21, Candy Stephenson walked into a social studies
classroom before the first-period bell rang at Huntsville High, accompanied
by the same two city police officers who have escorted her through the
school halls for almost a month.

She stood in front of the class, petite, stylish and determined. Thirty
sophomores looked back, waiting to hear the message she had been trying to
spread since Hunter's death.

One of the policemen, Chuck Duncan, stood by her side, helping her explain
the drug hotline that was created after Hunter's death.

The other officer, Jimmy Whelpley, waited in the hall, holding more cards
with a photograph of Hunter and the hotline phone numbers.

"Be a friend - save a life,'' said Candy, opening her presentation. "That's
what this hotline is about.''

After Candy's presentation, she was followed into the hall by a sophomore
girl holding photographs of her boyfriend and his best friend. Her
boyfriend's best friend had died of a drug overdose over the weekend, the
girl told Candy. He was a former resident of Huntsville, the girl explained,
who had left the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Ivan moved toward Florida.

He died in Florence. Her boyfriend found his best friend's body, dead of an
apparent mixture of OxyContin and methadone, the girl told Candy.

The news jolted Candy. The boy had attended Huntsville Middle School before
moving to Destin, Fla. Candy figured the boy surely knew about Hunter's
death, considering his ties to Huntsville and the strong emotional reaction
among parents and students at Huntsville High.

Hunter's death triggered a surge of activity. Parents of Huntsville High
students formed committees. Abernathy, Hunter's tennis coach, changed the
way she taught her health class.

In a session Abernathy calls "agree-disagree,'' she asks students their
opinions on mandatory drug testing for all students, alcohol use at parties
and parents searching their children's rooms, among other things.

"We have to talk about these issues,'' she said. "I feel like I should have
done it before this.''

Students taped posters in school hallways. One of the posters was a student
announcement for a Sept. 28 meeting at a Five Points restaurant.

"Come listen to a pharmacist explain what can/cannot be mixed so no one has
to deal with loss,'' it read.

"Make friends 4 ever because thanks to SADD, they'll live,'' read another
announcement, this one for Students Against Destructive Decisions, a
national organization brought to Huntsville High after Hunter's death.

Charlie and Candy Stephenson have been at the forefront of the movement. In
early September, Candy spent two or three days a week at Huntsville High,
hoping to speak with each of the school's 1,281 students. By the end of the
month, she had appeared before every social-studies class, satisfied she had
accomplished her goal.

But on the morning of Sept. 21, Candy was in a second-floor hallway at
Huntsville High, listening to the sophomore girl explain the death of her
boyfriend's best friend.

"What are these kids thinking?'' Candy said after the girl returned to her
classroom.

Slow day, hectic night

On the night of Aug. 5, a Thursday, Hunter Stephenson was thinking about
dinner after he came home early from his summer job.

It had been a slow day bagging groceries at Star Market on Pratt Avenue, a
short drive from his family's 1850s home, so Hunter was allowed to leave
work around 6:30 p.m.

After changing into his gray Auburn T-shirt and khaki shorts, he asked his
sister Brooke, a teacher at Hampton Cove Elementary, if she'd like to go out
for dinner.

They decided on the Outback restaurant on Whitesburg Drive, and Hunter led
the way in his Pathfinder. Brooke followed him through downtown and onto
Whitesburg.

At the last second, though, Hunter decided on Chinese food. He turned toward
the Great Panda restaurant, one of his favorite spots, and Brooke and her
boyfriend continued on toward Outback.

After dinner, he drove his car to Hermitage Park and met a classmate. He was
a classmate Hunter's parents didn't approve of. For more than a year, they
had tried to keep the two apart. But on this night, Hunter hopped into his
friend's car and they drove to Ditto Landing for a concert, the start of a
hectic night.

Wrong place, wrong time

Just before 9 p.m., Hunter made a cell phone call to another Huntsville High
student, a longtime friend. He told her to meet him at a home near Hermitage
Park in southeast Huntsville.

It's the home of the student the Stephensons believe gave the methadone
pills to Hunter.

The Stephensons have pieced together the story of their son's last night
through conversations with Hunter's friends and classmates.

Night after night, for more than 50 consecutive days, the students have
gathered on the Stephensons' back porch, the family's favorite gathering
spot. They talk long into the night, discussing Hunter and what happened
that night. Abernathy, his tennis coach, is among the regulars.

So are Pederson, his doubles partner and best friend, and the girl who met
Hunter at the home near Hermitage Park.

Even the two classmates who accompanied Hunter to the back yard of that home
have been to the Stephensons' back porch, telling them the alleged details
of the drug deal.

"Wrong place, wrong time,'' Candy concluded.

"Wrong people,'' Charlie said.

Neither suspected Hunter of taking painkillers. Both highly involved in his
school and his life, the Stephensons thought they were raising him
correctly.

Candy was president of the Huntsville High Tennis Booster Club. She was at
school and tennis practice so frequently that she monitored Hunter's days
through information from Abernathy, his coach.

If Hunter made a bad grade on a test, Abernathy told Candy. Any other
misstep, and Abernathy was ready with details.

"I can't do anything,'' Hunter once complained to Abernathy.

Hunter also had a curfew of 11:30 p.m. Candy peppered him with cell-phone
calls about his whereabouts.

On the night of Aug. 5, she called him around 11.

"Where are you?''

Tomorrow was supposed to be a big day for Hunter. He had junior orientation
at the school, and he planned to change chemistry classes.

In three days, he was scheduled to start classes at Huntsville High's new
$30 million building. As a final summer fling, Hunter planned a trip to Six
Flags with Pederson and his sisters, Brooke and Paige, a student at the
College of Charleston.

"I'm on my way,'' Hunter told his mother.

By 11:15, he was home.

Hunter and his father talked about Auburn football recruiting past midnight.
Candy joined the discussion, then Paige, and the family talked until about
12:30.

Then Hunter was alone in the computer room, talking with his girlfriend and
instant-messaging his friends on the computer, until almost 3:45 a.m..

"I would have bet my life he would have never taken a pill,'' Charlie said,
"and I'd be dead.''

Neither Charlie nor Candy had heard of methadone until the 911 call the next
morning.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams this would happen to us,'' Candy said.

'Tired of children dying'

About 70 Huntsville High students, parents and teachers gathered at Tenders
restaurant in Five Points Tuesday for the first meeting of SADD.

Jannie Chapman stood by the front door, watching the crowd filter in,
clearly pleased with the turnout.

Chapman is the chairwoman of Safe Kids/Safe Schools, an organization created
because of Hunter's death.

"What it all boils down to is we're sick and tired of children dying, and
we're not going to take it anymore,'' said Chapman, the parent of a
Huntsville High student.

Painkillers, she said, are the principal problem.

"That's what's killing them, and they're mixing them,'' she said. "We don't
want them to destroy their lives before they get started.''

Much has happened since Hunter's death. Two Huntsville High students checked
themselves into drug rehabilitation soon after his death, including the
student suspected of giving methadone to Hunter. No arrests have been made.

The Friday after Hunter's death, about 50 parents, all of them mothers of
Huntsville High students, attended the first meeting of Safe Kids/Safe
Schools. Since then, the group has almost doubled, Chapman said.

Like the Stephensons, Chapman was quick to point out that Huntsville High
isn't the only school fighting problems with pills. As evidence, she cited
the reaction to the hotline created in Hunter's honor.

Decatur, Athens, Grissom and Randolph high schools have inquired, she said,
as well as Whitesburg Middle School.

"It's everywhere in our community,'' Chapman said.

Gary Walton, the pharmacist at Cove Pharmacy in Hampton Cove, was invited to
speak to the group huddled in a banquet room on the second floor of Tenders.

"From talking to people, they're going to parties and bringing different
drugs and taking different combinations,'' Walton said before his speech.
"I'm going to tell them not to do any of them, not just mixing, and how they
don't know their limits.''

None of the parents or teachers expected Candy Stephenson to attend. They
considered the topic too painful for her.

But just after Walton began speaking, Candy showed up and sat near the top
of the stairs. After listening for 20 minutes, she headed for the parking
lot, dreading what was coming next, most likely a discussion about mixing
pills.

Out in the parking lot, she looked up at the students jammed in front of the
second-floor window, some of them sharing chairs as they listened to Walton.
This awareness and spreading knowledge were exactly what she wanted to
emerge from Hunter's death.

Hunter, though, was no hero, in her estimation. She thought he was strong
enough to resist temptation. She thought she and Charlie had raised him
better than to take a pill without realizing the consequences. She thought
he should have known.

In his mother's view, Hunter was responsible for what he did on the night of
Aug. 5. But Hunter was also responsible for what she had seen in that
banquet room.

"We've all got to take care of each other,'' she said, "and that's what I'm
seeing up there.''

Then she drove away, ready for another long night on the back porch talking
about the last night of Hunter's life.