San Antonio Teen Deaths: Probably Drug Overdoses
Maggie
Mother blames girls' deaths on overdose
By Bill Hendricks
Express-News Staff Writer
After meeting with police and medical examiner officials, Evette Lopez said
Tuesday she believes her 14-year-old daughter and a niece died from a drug
overdose and then their bodies were dumped in a West Side alley.
The bodies of Cassandra Lopez and Denise Marmolejo, both 14, were found about 8
a.m. Sunday behind the Bazan Branch Library in the 2200 block of West Commerce
Street.
"They are just basically going to rule it an overdose," Lopez said, adding that
she doesn't believe police are conducting an aggressive enough investigation.
Lopez and her daughter, Denise, were living in Ponte Verde Beach, Fla. The teen
was spending part of the summer at her grandmother's house in the 800 block of
South Smith Street.
Cassandra Lopez's mother, Patricia Lopez, lives on Elvira Street a few blocks
west of Smith Street, but the teen had been living with her grandmother.
Evette Lopez said detectives haven't questioned people who reported seeing the
girls walking in the area around Guadalupe Plaza after the teens slipped out of
their grandmother's house without permission Saturday night.
Nor have officers questioned people who frequent the plaza after dark, she
said. Families take even their youngest children to the plaza during the day,
but parents get their babies safely home after dark, she said.
The two 14-year-olds had spent part of Saturday at the plaza, Evette Lopez
said, but when they asked permission to return that night, their grandmother
said no.
But the two girls slipped out while their grandmother was tending to younger
children in the family.
Evette Lopez said she suspects that late Saturday night the two girls walked to
the park area, in the 1300 block of El Paso Street about three blocks west of
their grandmother's house, and met with someone who supplied them with drugs
that killed them.
She suspects the bodies then were dumped in the alley, located more than a mile
northwest of the plaza and their grandmother's house.
Asked about the emphasis his detectives have given the investigation, Police
Chief Al Philippus said, "We're (conducting) a full investigation. We're trying
to identify any leads we can."
An autopsy performed Tuesday morning didn't pinpoint the cause of death,
Philippus said.
The procedure did rule out gunshots, stabbing, strangulation and most of the
other causes of death investigators encounter in homicide investigations,
police Sgt. Gabriel Trevino said.
Investigators now are awaiting the results of toxicological tests that are used
to determine if victims died from a drug overdose or poisoning.
Such tests can take several weeks, but officials hope to have the results more
quickly in this case.
Meanwhile, Philippus said the police investigation still is moving forward.
"We're proceeding with fact finding as much as we can," Philippus said. "I know
for a fact we're looking for witnesses. We're looking for any potential
suspects."
Not knowing the cause of death handicaps investigators, he said.
"That's the problem right now; they do not have a definite cause of death."
The autopsy took longer than in some cases, Trevino said, because evidence
technicians did a fingerprint examination of the two bodies.
That procedure, performed by police, was done in an effort to find fingerprints
of people who might have handled the victims' bodies after they died.
Such fingerprints could be used to locate suspects.
Trevino said officers have identified the person who called police from a
convenience store Sunday morning and told officers where to find the bodies,
but detectives still haven't interviewed the man.
While the police investigation continues, Philippus said, "We can't say it was
a homicide; we can't say it was a drug overdose; we can't say it was a suicide.
We can't pinpoint a cause."
Trevino said homicide detectives observed the autopsy Tuesday morning and said
they saw no obvious trauma to the bodies.
The victim's grandmother, Jane Lopez, said earlier in the week that photographs
of the bodies showed the girls had bruises on their face.
Steve Hanson, chief investigator for the medical examiner, said the victims'
faces could have been discolored from causes other than trauma.
Evette Lopez said investigators have told her from the beginning that they
suspected a drug overdose killed the girls.
After Bexar County authorities reached Evette Lopez in Florida and notified her
that her daughter and her niece had been found dead, they told her the probable
cause was a drug overdose, she said.
Since arriving in San Antonio, Lopez has talked to detectives who she said were
convinced the two teens died from a drug overdose.
Lopez believes tests will confirm that suspicion. Still, she wants police to
move faster in their investigation.
A funeral service for the two teens was scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at
Memorial Funeral Home, in the 1600 block of El Paso Street.
Lopez plans to take her daughter's body back to Florida for burial.
The mother said her child was born in San Antonio but has lived with her in
Florida since she was a few months old.
Lopez said her daughter was doing well in school and had a keen interest in
environmental preservation.
Her cousin, Cassandra Lopez, was a student at Lanier High School. She is to be
buried Friday at San Fernando Cemetery.
Her grandmother said she and Cassandra were members of Way of Christ Church in
the 1100 block of South Zarzamora Street.
"She was a good girl," said Tony Salvo, the church's pastor.
Salvo said in an interview earlier in the week that children in the
neighborhood face many risks, including danger created by drug trafficking.
The preacher said he sometimes thought that drugs in the neighborhood were
"more abundant than air."
Maggie
"A long dispute means that both parties are wrong." Voltaire
PattyC4303
*relating* personally to Maggie. But I am NOT here to talk about that. I am
saying, this woman, as to TRUE CRIME and getting hinky when it fits, is one of
my atc posting heroes.
GOD, I hate when you do this, Maggie (not really). Sometimes I want to SLAP
you for your over confident bottom line comments. Then you go again being so
"right."
I guess I should just ask you now who killed Molly Bish (since of course, I am
ever so hopeful it was NOT the boyfriend, just 'cause I hate those honing in on
one person conclusions....)
As to the below... how pathetic.
PattyC<---always thinking I am going to "call" a crime, but then, I am the one,
who on day-one said Burke did in JBR. NOT that I still don't think that.....
In article <20000802174305...@ng-mf1.aol.com>,
maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC (Maggie) writes:
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."
Maggie
>You know.... some of you guys over time have occasionally had troubles with
>*relating* personally to Maggie. But I am NOT here to talk about that.
> I am
>saying, this woman, as to TRUE CRIME and getting hinky when it fits, is
>one of
>my atc posting heroes.
>
>GOD, I hate when you do this, Maggie (not really). Sometimes I want to
>SLAP
>you for your over confident bottom line comments. Then you go again being
>so
>"right."
>
>I guess I should just ask you now who killed Molly Bish (since of course,
>I am
>ever so hopeful it was NOT the boyfriend, just 'cause I hate those honing
>in on
>one person conclusions....)
***Well, you might want to hold the praise. As Slim just posted, the girls'
deaths have been ruled murder but the determination seems to have been made by
*exclusion* rather than *inclusion*. Apparently the rush-tox reports came back
negative for anything that could have killed them, so the ME has ruled they
were asphyxiated (I think this, in reverse, is why so many asphyxiation deaths
in infants are ruled SIDS). There are apparently no positive findings to
indicate they were suffocated, and there is no evidence of strangulation or
sexual assault. Should be interesting to see what happens.