TEEN'S DEATH BLAMED ON OVERDOSE

Mother Thinks Daughter's Drink Was Spiked; Police Believe She Took Drug
Knowingly

Seventeen-year-old Jenni Bond left her Surrey home on Friday evening
telling her mom, Renatta, that she was going to the movies.

Within a matter of hours Jenni was dead, apparently the victim of an
overdose of drugs, possibly ecstasy.

She collapsed and died at the entrance to the Edmonds SkyTrain station
about 11 p.m.

Jenni was the second teenager to die suddenly in the past month in
circumstances that suggest illegal drugs might have been involved.

West Vancouver police are still awaiting a toxicology report on Carla
Benavides, 16, who was unresponsive when her mother tried to wake her
up after she had been out with friends the night before.

Jenni was Renatta's only child and the mother's loss lies beyond the
reach of language. Words can only hint at it.

"I wake up and realize she's not there. Then I think, 'Oh my God,
she'll be coming home soon.' And then I remember, 'No, she's never
coming back.' "

It's the cruelty of how the mind works and the awful loss itself that
makes those three short sentences such an effort for her mother to
deliver.

Her mom and Jenni's friends from Newton Learning Centre and Richmond's
Fraserview Church gathered at the Edmonds SkyTrain station in
remembrance on Monday afternoon.

There are two versions of what happened.

Her mom believes that instead of going to the movies, Jenni went to a
friend's house in Burnaby, where her drink was spiked with ecstasy.

She said her daughter had used the drug a couple of times three years
ago but had stopped because two of her friends had died from overdoses.

However, Burnaby RCMP don't believe the death was suspicious, and they
think that Jenni knowingly took a drug.

Cpl. Alexandra Mulvihill said police are investigating the
death.

"So far there's nothing to indicate there was anything suspicious,"
Mulvihill said.

"Everything leads us to believe she knowingly consumed
it,"

It will take a toxicology test to determine what the drug was, she
said.

Mulvihill said it appears that Jenni met a male friend and purchased
drugs at a location outside Burnaby.

She took the drugs and then came back into Burnaby on a bus that was
taking the pair to the Edmonds SkyTrain station, where she collapsed.

"She was attended by the SkyTrain security. Our members came as did
the paramedics," Mulvihill said.

The overarching message from the police is that another young person
has died as the result of ingesting an illegal drug.

"It doesn't matter what the drug was. The use of an illegal drug, be
it ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, GHB or others can have devastating
consequences," Mulvihill said.

"This incident is a tragic event and highlights the dangerous activity
of illegal drug use.

"It isn't the first time it's happened recently. There's the young
girl in West Vancouver. It only shows how dangerous these drugs are."