16-YEAR-OLD IS YOUNGEST VICTIM IN SUSPECTED OVERDOSE DEATHS

After a few bumpy years, Jennifer Rivera's life seemed to be laid out
before her like a smooth and welcoming road.

The 16-year-old was excited about starting the new year at Reagan High
School and told family members she wanted to participate in campus
activities.

"She was enthusiastic about it," said her mother, Marina Grace Rivera.
"She wasn't doing it just to pacify me."

Rivera's parents, however, won't see their daughter stride confidently
across the stage in a few years to accept her high school diploma and
continue on to college.

She will deal no more hands of cards to Elizabeth and Angelica, her
11-year-old twin sisters.

Another sister, Sarah Vickers, 31, won't be able to watch her play
with Mama Bear, the beloved family mutt.

Jennifer Rivera, a fan of rap music and computer chat rooms, will be
buried today - the youngest victim of a rash of suspected drug
overdose-related deaths that primarily struck northeast Houston last
weekend.

"We felt she had kind of turned around - like she had grown up a bit,"
her mother said. "You think they've got their ducks in a row finally,
and it seems like their ducks are kind of scattered now."

The Harris County Medical Examiner's Office said Rivera was one of 14
people whose bodies apparently contained a lethal combination of
cocaine and heroin.

Marina Rivera said she can't blame anybody else for her daughter's
death and acknowledged that Jennifer may have used marijuana in the
past.

"Jennifer did what Jennifer wanted to do," Marina Rivera said. "She
was very much her own person. I know it (the overdose) wasn't on
purpose. It was just a mistake. Whatever she ended up taking was just
a mistake. She wanted to be in control."

Even as she planned her daughter's funeral, Marina Rivera was asking
herself how it could have happened.

"She was in the hospital about three years ago and needles just
freaked her out," Rivera said. "She repeatedly said that was something
she wouldn't do."

Rivera found her daughter shortly before 4:30 p.m. Sunday in a house
across the street from their home in the 400 block of East 16th
Street. A licensed vocational nurse, Rivera detected no signs of life.

"I knew she was gone," the mother said.

A longtime friend of Jennifer Rivera was also at the scene and
apparently took the same cocaine-heroin combination but survived. The
17-year-old male remains hospitalized, Marina Rivera said.

No names were added Wednesday to the list of victims. Meanwhile,
police said investigators were still trying to determine how much of
the dangerous mixture was still on the street and where it came from.

A few hours before visitation services were to begin Wednesday at
Heights Funeral Home, Jennifer Rivera's family sat in their living
room and remembered her.

"There's so much in my heart," Marina Rivera said. "It's hard to get
it out. There's so much to say about her and I can't get it out."

The father, Ozzie Rivera, said Jennifer had some problems in school,
including talking in class. But he quickly jumped to her defense.

"That's because she wasn't challenged," he said. "She always finished
her work ahead of time. She had nothing else to do."

Vickers said her half-sister's death occurred as they were bridging a
gap that had separated them several years ago.

"She reached the age where we could relate better," Vickers said. "We
were talking about the future, and we would talk about how we didn't
like the same music."