TEEN WOULDN'T TAKE ECSTASY, SAYS MOTHER

But Mounties Suspect She Did Take The Drug

The mother of a Surrey teen who died of a drug overdose believes her
daughter's drink was spiked, despite police reports to the contrary.

Jenni Bond, 17, collapsed on the steps of Edmonds SkyTrain station at
10:30 p.m. Friday after taking what is believed to be a large dose of
ecstasy. She died in hospital.

Police said Jenni knowingly ingested the drug, but her mother, Renatta
Bond, isn't buying it.

"Other people are saying she bought the drugs herself," she said
yesterday at a memorial outside the Burnaby station. "It's a he-said,
she-said. She can't speak out so I'm going to speak out for her."

Bond said her daughter, a Grade 12 student at Newton Learning Centre,
told her she was going to watch a movie with a friend.

On the way, friends texted her asking her to party with them. She met
up with them and was given one mixed drink, said Bond.

"Within 20 minutes, her speech started slurring, she started
stumbling, she was not in good shape."

Bond was adamant her daughter wouldn't knowingly take drugs. "She has
already lost three friends to ecstasy," said the grief-stricken mom.
"She wouldn't do that."

Jenni also had a stomach condition and knew drugs were a
no-no.

When doctors pumped her stomach, there were no pill fragments, said
Bond. "If she was popping the ecstasy pills herself, there would have
been."

RCMP believe there are no sinister underpinnings to the
death.

"There's no suspicious circumstances in the way she ingested what is
believed to be an illegal drug," said Cpl. Alexandra Mulvihill. "At no
time is there anything to indicate she was slipped a drug."

Jenni's death comes three weeks after Carla Benavides, 16, of West
Vancouver, died in her bed after partying with friends. Police are
waiting for toxicology reports.

At the makeshift memorial yesterday, Bond spray-painted a pine tree
with "RIP Jen" as tearful friends laid flowers and stuffed animals at
the base of the tree and planted pink candles in the soil to remember
a girl they described as loving, selfless -- and not one to use drugs.

"That's not even Jenni," said Carley Favell, 16. "She's the one always
taking care of everybody at a party. She had an ulcer so she knew she
couldn't do it. It would kill her."

Daryl Wilson, who knew Jenni through The Fridge, a drop-in centre,
said he never knew her to be into drugs or alcohol. "She seemed to be
a bit smarter than that."

Bond, a nurse who is off work with an ankle injury, is trying to raise
money for Jenni's funeral.

Her message to other teens: "Next time your friends want you to pop,
remember this," she said, wiping away tears. "I don't want any other
mother to be out here, figuring out how to move on."

Donations for Jenni's funeral can be made at any TD Canada Trust
branch, account number 6419469.