HEROIN EXPERIMENT KILLS ALEDO TEEN

FORT WORTH -- It was about 4:30 a.m. last Saturday when Randy Kalmoe
snorted heroin and then sat at his computer to chronicle the drug's effects.

In the half-page journal entry, the Aledo High School senior wrote that it
was the first time he had used the drug and he wanted to detail
psychological and physical changes he felt after ingesting one capsule, and
then another.

Kalmoe's first experiment with the drug was his last.

Robert Kalmoe walked into his son's bedroom about 10:30 that same morning
to find the unfinished journal entry on the computer screen and his son
unconscious. Three days later, the 18-year-old died at Harris Methodist
Fort Worth, the victim of an apparent overdose, according to preliminary
autopsy findings.

More extensive toxicology tests are being conducted to determine if other
drugs were in his system.

Robert Kalmoe said his son's first use of heroin was an apparent attempt to
prove to a classmate that a person couldn't become addicted after trying
the drug only once.

"I think he thought the girl was using addiction as an excuse to do heroin
on a regular basis," the father said. "He was actually trying to get her to
quit."

In his journal, investigators said, Randy Kalmoe wrote that addiction was
in the mind of the user. "The last line [in his journal] said he couldn't
look at the computer screen anymore," Robert Kalmoe said. "He was getting
nauseous and decided to lie down."

On Sunday, Fort Worth police conducted an undercover buy at a home in the
4200 block of Avenue J, where investigators believe that the heroin was
first purchased, possibly by Kalmoe's classmates.

After obtaining a search warrant, police raided the house and found 222
capsules of heroin, 66 capsules of cocaine and a small amount of marijuana.
Scattered on the floor and in blue bank bags hidden in the walls and under
the house was more than $3,000 in cash, according to a police report.

The home's two occupants, James G. Washington, 33, and Brandon M. Lankford,
21, were arrested. Washington faces charges of delivery of a controlled
substance and possession with the intent to deliver. Lankford faces a
charge of possession with the intent to deliver.

James Peel, an investigator with the Cross Timbers Drug Task Force, said he
expects that other arrests will involve people who provided the heroin
directly to Kalmoe. They could face charges in the teen's death, he said.

Counselors were on hand at Aledo High School this week to help students
cope with the loss of Kalmoe, described by Superintendent Don Daniel as a
good, polite student who was well-liked.

Daniel said the district tries to teach students about the dangers of drugs
in a health curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade. In addition,
he said, a Parker County sheriff's deputy teaches a drug prevention course
to fifth-graders.

"As hard as you try to impress that point to students, we just do not have
the influence that their peer group has," Daniel said.

Daniel said the district will review its curriculum and support programs
for possible improvements.

Robert Kalmoe said that although he knew his son smoked marijuana
recreationally, it was less than six months ago that the teen and his older
brother had given a solemn oath never to experiment with heroin.

Peel said investigators talked to the two classmates whom Randy Kalmoe
identified in his journal as having sold him the drug. That led to the Fort
Worth house searched by police on Sunday.

"They wouldn't say they gave it to the victim. They did tell us where the
rest of the heroin was. That was over in Fort Worth," Peel said.

Peel and Fort Worth police described the residence as a "24-hour dope
house" where people apparently worked in shifts and transactions were made
by passing a tin cup through a barred window.

Lt. Ric Clark said the house has, in the past year, been the site of a
homicide, an aggravated assault and two other police searches that ended in
drug and weapon seizures.

"We've requested this house be looked at under the abatement process of the
city due to the murder and aggravated assault, along with drug cases,"
Clark said.

State law allows the attorney general to file suit against homeowners and
shut down properties that become nuisances by repeated criminal activity.

Robert Kalmoe said the arrest of the two men in Fort Worth provided little
relief.

"It's everywhere," Robert Kalmoe said. "If it wasn't them, it would be from
somewhere else. It's apparently more widespread in Aledo than anyone out
here wants to admit."

Peel, who handles many of the task force's investigations in the Aledo
area, agreed.

"I think it has the potential to be just like Plano," Peel said, referring
to about two dozen heroin-related deaths that plagued Plano in the late 1990s.

"We've talked to 10 different witnesses under the age of 19. Every one of
them has said they'd tried heroin. I think there's a major drug problem in
Aledo."