Night of Ecstasy Leads to Death

Another night of partying, another Ecstasy death. How is it kids continue to think the drug is safe when nearly every week when I do a Nexis search on "ecstasy AND death," I find stories like this one:

EDMONTON -- A 21-year-old Edmonton man has turned himself in and faces a manslaughter charge in the death of 20-year-old Brandon Klein. Klein died Feb. 19 after becoming unconscious at a drug-fuelled party in a Clareview area apartment.

After friends urged him to give himself up, Shane Thomas Anderson surrendered at the downtown police headquarters Saturday evening, police spokesman Dean Parthenis said Sunday.

Tamara Golden, a friend to both the victim and suspect, said Shane phoned her last week, doing more sobbing than talking.

"He couldn't stop crying. He just told me he wanted to turn himself in but he was scared," said Golden, 15. "He was scared because that was like one of his best friends. They grew up together; they worked together for a while."

Anderson had phoned her several times in the two weeks since Klein died, always from blocked numbers so his whereabouts remained a mystery.

The arrest of the key homicide suspect gives some closure to Klein's family, still desperate to know how the party turned deadly.

"We are relieved now that somebody's going to have to answer to what happened that night," Karen Cadieux, his mother, said with a slight tremble in her voice. "We definitely will move forward now, but it doesn't unfortunately change for us as a family. Nothing changes." ...

Her son twice sought treatment for his crack-cocaine addiction, but relapsed both times. Friends at the party said Klein was taking the drug ecstasy and sipping vodka, and acted angrily at the party -- rare for a young man his mother called "a gentle giant."

At one point that evening Klein hit Golden. Klein himself was hit. Golden and Anderson attempted CPR when Klein fell unconscious.

He died in hospital later that night.

Police, believing the death to be a drug overdose, did not make any arrests that night. Later, an autopsy revealed Klein had died from a blow to the head.

The story was from the Edmonton Journal. I couldn't find a link to an online version, unfortunately.