PANEL PROBES TEEN'S DEATH

Agencies' Responses To Problems At Issue

EAST HAMPTON -- The state is probing whether public agencies went far
enough to prevent the May death of a 16-year-old girl believed to have died
of an Ecstasy overdose. As authorities await a detailed toxicology report
from the state medical examiner, child-welfare officials have launched a
probe into the circumstances surrounding the life and death of Makayla
Korpinen.

State Child Advocate Jeanne Milstein said the state Child Fatality Review
Panel, of which she is chairwoman, will examine nearly every aspect of
Korpinen's life, from her family upbringing to her education and social life.

The girl's mother, Catherine Korpinen, Wednesday said she was "very pleased
and relieved" the state heard her plea for an investigation.

On June 19, about a month after Makayla died, Catherine Korpinen made an
emotional appearance before the Child Fatality Review Panel, seeking to
erase a "gray area" in state law that she said limits parental intervention
when children between the ages of 15 and 18 run away from home.

Connecticut law does not require a child aged 16 or 17 to live at home.
Moreover, if a child that age runs away, law enforcement essentially can
intervene only if the child commits a crime or is the victim of one.

In a statement she read to the panel, Korpinen said she had fruitless
contacts with social-service agencies and the local police as she sought to
bring her daughter home after Makayla moved in with her 19-year-old
boyfriend, Joseph Nedobity, and his family. Nedobity faces charges,
unrelated to Makayla's death, of possession of marijuana and possession of
drug paraphernalia, and a separate assault charge.

"I was disappointed to learn there was nothing I could do to get Makayla
back if she did not want to come home," she told the panel.

Milstein said a staff investigator will use the panel's subpoena power to
interrogate social-service agencies and other public agencies, including
the East Hampton school system and police, on how they reacted once
notified of Makayla's problems at home. Milstein said the panel could issue
by early next year a report with recommendations for improving the public
and private safety nets that might have prevented Makayla's death. "It's
unusual for a child to die of an overdose of Ecstasy," Milstein said. "This
one merits some close attention."

The review-panel probe will also provide an opportunity to boost public
awareness of the dangers of a synthetic drug that is increasingly popular
with teens and young adults, said Deputy Chief State's Attorney Steve Sellers.

The Office of the Chief State's Attorney, the state's top criminal
prosecutor, along with the Department of Public Safety and the state
coroner, are among the members of the review panel.

Korpinen urged the panel "to investigate all aspects of Makayla's death,
reach its own conclusions about who bears any responsibility for her
untimely death, and work to develop strategies to prevent a tragedy such as
this from ever happening again." As state child advocate, Milstein's office
routinely probes all deaths of children younger than 18.

But only a half dozen or so are scrutinized by the child fatality review
panel, typically when there is evidence of a breakdown in public and
private support systems, she said. The panel is also investigating the
circumstances surrounding the death of Christina Long of Danbury, who
authorities say was murdered in May by a man she met on the Internet.

As of Wednesday, the state medical examiner's had not yet issued results of
a toxicology examination that may yield a definitive cause of Makayla's death.

The autopsy conducted by Hartford Hospital, where Makayla was in a coma on
life support for four days after she is believed to have consumed Ecstasy,
determined she succumbed to "complication from intoxication, substance
unknown."

The wait for toxicology results has slowed the East Hampton police
investigation. The cause of death is vital to focusing their investigation
to determine whether criminal laws were broken.