MANDY'S STORY - FROM A LOVING HOME TO DEATH ON THE SKIDS

She is listed as coroner's case 98-249-1257, a female Caucasian dead
of natural causes at age 23.

To her family, Mandy Elizabeth Blakemore was loved, loved them in
return and died a death that was anything but natural.

Mandy was a drug addict.

She was also the baby in a close and loving family, and a young mother
herself.

"Mandy was just like me," said her older sister Angel,
25.

"She had a good life. Mandy loved life. She didn't want to
die."

Mandy's death, says Staff-Sgt. Doug MacKay-Dunn, a longtime Vancouver
drug cop, shows that anyone's child can get hooked on drugs.

"That could happen to any one of us," he said. "That could happen to
any family. There but for the grace of God . . ."

Mandy pleaded for death just hours before her wish came true on Aug.
26.

She begged police to let her die the morning a CBC-TV news crew found
her sitting on a doorstep behind a dumpster in a filthy downtown
east-side alley.

Emaciated and exhausted, with tears streaming down her face, she sat
holding her only possessions: A small plastic bag of rags and a crack
pipe.

"Don't break it. Please, please don't break it," she begged the
officer.

"I want to die right now, so I'm not really here."

Mandy died the next day.

The call her sister had feared for years came at three in the
morning.

"When they phoned me, they said she was already brain-dead," Angel
said.

She rushed to Mandy's bedside in Vancouver General Hospital. By the
time she arrived, Mandy was dead.

"She was all toe-tagged, body-bagged, ready to go," said Angel,
choking on her tears. "I had to see my sister in a body bag."

Angel wasn't even allowed to kiss her little sister
goodbye.

"I couldn't touch her. She was highly infectious.

"She just looked awful."

Mandy died from an infection called bacterial endocarditis, a chronic
condition resulting from intravenous drug use. She died when a blood
vessel ruptured in her brain.

She was also HIV-positive and had hepatitis A, B and
C.

Mandy had been addicted to heroin for 31/2 years and was a frequent
crack user.

"I had known for years this would kill her one way or the other," said
Angel. "It tore my life apart, and it killed her."

Angel is not certain exactly when the downward spiral
began.

"Mandy was such a happy kid. She had this big smile. She had a good
life. She loved her family."

The Blakemores lived a normal life in a number of small towns,
including Zeballos. Art, her dad, worked in security for a mining
company and Pat, her mom, operated a take-out food business.

But at age 13 Mandy revealed a terrible secret: She told
her

parents she had been sexually assaulted by a family acquaintance at
age five.

The family rallied behind her, supporting her when the man was
arrested and charged. But they didn't realize she needed professional
counselling.

The case took several years to come to court and, when it finally did,
the man was acquitted.

"Mandy was about 17, and she finally gets her day in court and he was
found not guilty," said Angel. "That just devastated the whole family."

Mandy became pregnant shortly afterward.

She and her boyfriend were delighted and moved in together.

"They both welcomed the baby," said Angel.

"After Mandy got pregnant with the baby, [she and her mother] got
really, really close."

Her mom and dad were there when baby Mark was born. The family
revelled in the baby's first Christmas.

"Mandy was a good mom. Her son meant everything to
her."

But there were some family squabbles. Mandy had an argument with her
father and they stopped talking.

And then, on a beautiful day in June five years ago, Mandy's world
came unglued.

"Mom and dad were killed by a truck driver who fell asleep at the
wheel," said Angel.

Mandy was devastated.

Not only did she miss her parents; she blamed herself for not making
up with her dad.

"She felt really guilty that she had not made up with him before he
died," said Angel.

"She was only 18, and here she was, a young mother with a
six-month-old baby and all these feelings of guilt. And put that on
top of losing her parents."

Mandy increasingly turned to alcohol for solace. And then she began to
dabble in cocaine.

"She never did seek counselling," said Angel.

Mandy's relationship with her common-law husband began to
deteriorate.

She went to Port McNeill to inquire about taking courses at the local
college. Instead, she became friendly with people seriously involved
with drugs.

"When her husband came to pick her up, she told him she wasn't going
back with him."

A short time later, Mandy and her son moved to Campbell River to live
with Angel and her new husband.

There were no drugs in the home, but Angel would often babysit so
Mandy could go out.

"Seeing who she was seeing and where she was going, there is no doubt
she was doing cocaine."

Mandy eventually moved into her own apartment with her son, and it was
then that drugs began to take over her life.

"She met friends who were the wrong people," said Angel. She visited a
couple of times and found Mandy holding drug parties while Mark was
asleep in the apartment.

"I told her this was a problem when she started getting into all these
drugs. I said, maybe you should slow down and think about giving Mark
to me and my husband for a little while."

But Mandy did not want to give up Mark -- or the drugs.

Concerned for her infant nephew's safety, Angel called the baby's
paternal grandmother.

"She ended up going and getting interim custody, and Mandy lost Mark,"
said Angel.

That was the beginning of the end.

"At that point I believe Mandy started getting very seriously into
drugs. She was doing cocaine very often. She was drinking very often."

She started lap-dancing at a Campbell River bar. It was there she got
involved with a drug gang.

"I believe that is when she was introduced to her first needle. She
started injecting cocaine. Then I believe they introduced her to
heroin. She was 20 years old."

The drugs were free until Mandy was hooked, a standard practice for
drug dealers.

"As soon as she was addicted, they said, 'OK, now you are mine and you
have to work for me.'

"She had to prostitute, she had to table-dance, she had to go and sell
it so she could keep up her habit."

Angel first realized her sister was addicted to heroin when she
learned that Mandy had been forced to move into the gang's house to
work as a prostitute.

"It was mandatory. They had a house where they sold their drugs and
alcohol and she was prostituting out of there. Their clients would
come by, pick up their drugs, pick whatever girl they wanted upstairs,
do their thing, and for each john she took there was a fix. It was
horrible."

Mandy became a prisoner, denied contact with her sister or anyone else
outside of the house.

From there she was moved to another house -- full of addicts -- to
sell drugs.

Angel realized the full horror of her little sister's lifestyle when
Mandy begged her to come to the house.

"She said, 'Angel, I'm in trouble. I haven't eaten in four days, I
don't have any money and I'm sick.

'I need to get high and they won't give me anything and I don't have
any shoes.'"

Angel paused for a moment to compose herself.

"I had to go down there and bring some shoes. And there she is,
barefoot in the middle of winter and no shoes, no food. I gave her
$50. I knew it was going to go to drugs. But she was sick. She needed
something. It was awful."

Angel's attempts to help Mandy get off drugs were rejected.

"I tried to help. I tried many times. I tried talking to her. I tried
disowning her. I tried absolutely everything, and nothing worked.

"It got to the point where every morning she had to do a hit so she
wouldn't be sick.

"You will wake up in the morning with stomach cramps, you won't be
able to eat. You'll have a headache, you'll be vomiting. You'll have
diarrhea. You won't be able to move. You will have body pains, you
will be really, really sick. And in order to get rid of that they need
to do a fix."

Mandy drifted to Vancouver, to a hellish life as an addict and
prostitute in the downtown east side.

The sisters lost touch.

But about 18 months ago Mandy called and asked -- for the first and
only time -- for help in getting off drugs.

"She phoned me and said, 'I can't do this any more. I need help.' I
said, 'That's all I need to know. Phone me back tonight. I'm going to
phone around. I am going to see what I can do about getting you into
detox or something.'"

Angel phoned the Campbell River hospital and every detox centre on the
island.

"With a drug addict, the day they decide they want help, you have to
act right away. The next day they might change their mind. I had to
get her into something that day if it was going to work."

There was nothing available.

As much as she loved her sister, Angel knew she couldn't handle a
heroin addict in withdrawal: "I couldn't have her at my home."

Mandy called back that night.

She said, "So, can I come down?"

"I said, 'Mandy, I don't have anywhere to put you. There is nowhere. I
tried.'

"She said, 'Forget it. Nobody wants to help me, then forget
it.'"

In April 1997, Mandy visited Angel to collect a $19,000 settlement
from their parents' death.

The sisters went for lunch.

"She couldn't eat her lunch. She had cramps. She had to get high. And
then she was able to eat.

"She had to smoke or inject heroin to go to the bathroom so her bowels
would work. She had to free-base cocaine to go to sleep.

"It was awful having to watch somebody you love deteriorate."

Mandy, loaded with cash, was doing drugs every 20 minutes.

"The $19,000 was gone in two weeks. All on drugs. The only thing she
had to show for it was a pair of shoes."

During the visit, Angel learned her sister was HIV-positive and had
hepatitis B. Fearing that her own family could be infected, Angel
told Mandy she could no longer visit.

"I told her, 'I love you, but I am not going to put my family at
risk.'"

That was the last time Angel saw her sister alive.

The last time they spoke was in July. Mandy was in hospital in
Vancouver with a weakened heart, caused by the bacterial infection
that a month later would lead to her death.

"She told me she loved me," said Angel. "I told her I loved her. She
said, 'I am sorry for everything.'

"I said, 'Don't be sorry for me. Be sorry for yourself. It's you
you're hurting.'"

Less than a month later Mandy was dead.

"Not only was her life taken, but part of my life was taken," said
Angel.

There is just one comfort.

"Mandy is home with me now," she says. "She's on the mantelpiece with
mom and dad."

She manages a smile.

"My husband thinks it's weird. But he's just going to have to get used
to it."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry