DEADLY DRUG STILL A MYSTERY

Three weeks ago, a 16-year-old Bend girl overdosed on an unknown
drug. She survived, but others around the world haven't been so
lucky. Police think the substance has effects similar to those of
Ecstasy, and authorities know its name - Sunshine - b

It's been three weeks since an ambulance took Juliet Holliman's
16-year-old foster daughter to St. Charles Bend for a drug overdose
involving a substance local investigators had never heard of.

The girl had sneaked out of Holliman's east Bend double-wide to hang
out with William Paden Hill, a young man she trusted like a brother.

Police say Hill, 19, took her to a party where he used his Oregon
Trail Card to cut a white powder into lines on a table. He said it
was a pure form of Ecstasy, a hallucinogenic stimulant.

The girl trusted him, so she took it.

Her condition deteriorated from repeated vomiting, hyperventilating,
shivering and profuse sweating to a decreased level of consciousness.
The effects of the drug didn't wear off until days later.

Police were so unsettled that they turned to the media to get the
word out about a new designer drug called "Sunshine."

We have never seen this before," said Bend Police Lt. John Gautney,
who leads the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team.

Now, Hill is in jail accused of having sex with the teenage girl
while she was under the influence of the drug. The Bulletin does not
identify victims of sex offenses.

A grand jury has indicted Hill on felony charges of sex abuse and
giving the teen cocaine and marijuana. But local prosecutors ssay
Hill has been charged with a minor offense -- delivering an imitation
controlled substance -- in connection with the Sunshine.

That is because Sunshine is not recognized by state or federal law as
an illegal drug, said Deschutes County Deputy District Attorney Kandy Gies.

But it's a very scary substance," Gies said. "They are passing it out
as if it is this pure form of Ecstasy, and it's not."

Hill has not entered a plea to the charges against him. His
court-appointed lawyer, Jacques DeKalb, declined to comment on the case.

Bend-based forensic scientist Angela Mayfield said she's put Sunshine
through testing at the Oregon State Police crime lab to determine
exactly what it is.

When I first got the results of my analysis, I didn't have any clue
what it was. I'd never seen it before," Mayfield said. "But I knew
that it looked similar to some other controlled substances, and I
knew from talking to some of the officers about its effects that it
was important to identify what this was."

She spent the better part of a week e-mailing different law
enforcement agencies and contacted the Drug Enforcement
Administration, but had no luck.

Mayfield looked online for any information she could find about the
compound and finally found forensic scientists in Australia who
seemed to have similar stuff in hand.

Based on information we got from Australia, we believe it is
methylmethcathinone," Mayfield said.

Although it has similar chemical compounds to methcathinone, a known
illegal stimulant, Mayfield said this substance is not the same thing.

The effects are purported to be similar to Ecstasy," she said.

News reports in Denmark and Sweden have linked methylmethcath-inone
to the death of two 18-year-olds, and the Australian media is warning
of its appearance.

Local authorities haven't nailed down exactly where the white powder
originally came from, but it can be purchased online.

Hill told authorities he bought an ounce of the stuff in Drake Park
for $380 on March 26, the night he gave it to Holliman's foster
daughter, according to a report by Bend Police Officer Don Barber.

Hill then divided 4 grams of the Sunshine into four baggies,
according to Barber's report, and later mixed the rest of the powder
with baking soda in preparation to sell it.

He told me they cut 16 grams of 'Sunshine' with 4 grams of baking
soda and placed it into 1 gram baggies," Barber wrote. "I asked Hill
how much they were going to sell the gram baggies for, and he said '$25.'"

Hill said he and his buddies took unadulterated Sunshine with them
when they picked up Holliman's foster daughter and took her to the
party on Bend's north side, according to Barber's report.

I asked (her) why she snorted the drugs without knowing what they
were and she told me she 'trusted' Hill," reads Barber's report.

Holliman said her daughter woke her up at 6:45 a.m. on March 27 to
say her foster daughter had come home violently ill.

I shot straight up out of bed and went right back there and said
'What did you take?'" Holliman said. "And at first she said 'coke.' I
think that's what she thought she was taking."

But Holliman watched as the girl's condition worsened and suspected
something else was going on.

She was having cold sweats, hyperventilating, shaking and extremely
cold," Holliman said.

So she called Hill and asked him what the girl had taken.

And he said, 'It's a pure form of Ecstasy, and you just need to keep
giving her water.'"

When her foster daughter started speaking in gibberish, Holliman
called for an ambulance.

Barber wrote that he tried to talk to the girl at the hospital "but
it was immediately apparent her condition had worsened, and she was
completely incoherent and confused and unable to communicate."

The teen spent the day "coming down" from the effects of the drug,
Holliman said.

They didn't know what it was, so they just had to let it run its
course," she said.

The girl became agitated, tried to tear off her blood pressure cuff
and said it hurt to touch her skin, so hospital staffers sedated her,
Holliman said.

Eventually, the effects of the drug wore off, and the teen was
released from the hospital the next day -- but not before Holliman
called Hill and persuaded him to let her drive him to the hospital to
visit her foster daughter. On the way there, police stopped the car
and took Hill into custody.

It wasn't his first trip to jail. Court records show Hill has
convictions for being a minor in possession of alcohol, domestic
assault, drunken driving and defacing property, and he is on
probation for possession of cocaine.

He was held at the Deschutes County jail Friday on $50,000 bail.

Her friends know what happened, and they are angry with her because
(Hill) is in jail," Holliman said.

The girl is in counseling and is extremely anxious about what she
went through and what will happen to Hill.

But she still wanted to get the story out, hoping no one else would
go through the same thing.

She's a good kid, but she just made a really, really bad choice,"
Holliman said. "And she trusted him. She thought if he said it was
going to be OK, it was going to be OK."

[SIDEBAR]

What is Sunshine?

The quick answer is: Nobody really seems to know. Oregon State Police
crime lab scientists believe the white powder, recently seized in
Bend, is methylmethcathinone, a stimulant of some kind. While
methcathinone is a known stimulant and an illegal narcotic, Angela
Mayfield, a forensic scientist (pictured above) with the OSP Bend
office, said Sunshine isn't the same animal.

Police say locals dealing in and taking Sunshine are passing around
the word that it is a pure form of Ecstasy, a hallucinogenic
stimulant. Mayfield says they're wrong, but nailing down exactly
what's in Sunshine has been a problem, since there is no known
substance to compare it with.

Overseas, recent media reports have linked methylmethcathinone to the
death of an 18-year-old woman in Sweden and an 18-year-old man in
Denmark. And officials in Australia have warned citizens of its
distribution there, according to ABC News.