This is Lisa’s story of the sudden and tragic death of her sister Lori in 1981. Lori was 25 years old and Lisa was 13. It took almost 3 decades for Lisa to find out the truth about her sister’s death. Here is Lisa’s story:
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My sister Lori Died Suddenly on Sept. 22, 1981. She was 25 years old. I always knew my Sister’s sudden death was suspicious. I had searched for years for the answers to why, which included contacting the police department, and going over the report many times! Someone had to do this to her, she would not have killed herself! This I knew for sure! I would sit in my driveway where she lost her life, and look at my house many times over, and say how did you sit here, looking at our families home with your daughter, niece, sisters, and parents sleeping inside, how how could you have done this to us, and yourself?!
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Nothing made sense then, and for the decades that followed. However, now almost three decades later “2009″ the truth has finally surfaced. I now have the answer I have searched for my entire life since that tragic morning I found her in her 1977 Buick with our father’s handgun in her lap. I promised her that morning I would not give up until I found the “truth” about what really happened to her. My sister loved life, and her family, and knew we loved her! She would not have taken her own life. So why did she?
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Summary of Lori’s Story:
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My sister moved home, and filed for divorce in 1980. I am her younger sister Lisa, and we spent most of this time together when she moved back home. I was going into the 8th grade that year. I was so happy that she was moving in with us, and that I would have time to spend with her. We were very close, very similar. Lori was a strong, smart woman, and she was determined to make it on her own! She worked for the county that we lived in, and was very well liked at her job. She also made enough money where she would be able to live. People that she worked with were shocked like everyone else was to hear about her sudden, so out of character death.
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At the time she lived with us she was doing fine, going to work everyday, and taking one day at a time to rebuild her life. Throughout her divorce it was stressful, just as much as expected in any divorce situation. It is a life change. Suddenly the last month to weeks of her life I noticed that she had changed. I listened, and I watched her suddenly turn into someone I did not know. I could not figure it out? Why was she acting like this? Saying these things to me? Finding it funny to scare me? Lori suddenly started to talk about death, and dying! In which she would include me in her plans/ideas on how I/We could end her life!
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Some examples are as follows:
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1. Lori would loop a belt around her neck, and ask me to pull it as hard as I could until she stopped breathing!
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2. Lori would ask me to come in the middle of the night, and put a pillow over her face to suffocate her in her sleep!
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3. Lori would lay still in her bed, and when she heard me coming down the hallway she would lay still, and pretend to be dead. When I shook her to wake her up she would not move. She stayed so still until she couldn’t anymore, and started to laugh out loud hysterically at me, and then would say to me “I’m just joking Lisa, I just wanted to see what it would feel like to really be dead, and what you would do if I really was?! Then she would go on to say to me, “you don’t have to worry I wouldn’t really do anything, I’m too chicken!”
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4. Lori suddenly changed by saying things to me like “HE” is in your room, closet and going to get you! Will you sleep with me in my room on the floor next to me? She also would say things that did not make sense like.. see this pin this will pop your face, see this curling iron, this will burn your face! It Never made sense the things she started to say..that was not her!
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5. Lori suddenly at times would go from laughing, and joking about something into anger, (suddenly she pushed me into a file cabinet, it, and myself fell on the ground) Lori never would hurt anyone, especially me; agitated, and confused mood. (suddenly she would look at me with sadness in her eyes, and say to me I don’t know why I am saying or doing these things.. I must be going crazy.
Lisa & Lori
6. Something else happened shortly before her life ended in such a tragic horrific way. Lori suddenly became very sick she came down with the flu. She lost weight, she could not eat, drink, or get up out of bed she was very pale, and weak, frail looking. I felt so bad I could not help her feel better. I had never seen her so sick before. She could not hold food down and was growing weaker by the day.
7. Lori also suddenly started to fall asleep with her bible on her face. As if she were reading. praying for help to feel better. I had to take the bible of her face a few times when she finally was able to sit still, and take a short nap.
8. Lori’s sleeping patterns suddenly changed as well.
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9. The night before she died, I remember it so clear. Lori kept rocking in our rocking chair that we had in our living room. She would not stop! She also was talking much faster than usual, and walking much faster as well. When I finally asked her to stop rocking so fast she just looked at me like she couldn’t stop, or didn’t want to. It was like someone was pushing her to rock. I thought it very odd at the time but soon overlooked it because of all her sudden behaviors had been so altered lately that I almost was getting use to the changes.
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10. That night my sister’s were staying up to watch the Deer Hunter a movie that came out in the 80′s I believe. They wanted me to stay up also to watch it with them but I was tired, and only made through some of it. The Russian Roulette camp scene came up. Where each of the prisoners were made to put a loaded handgun to their heads, some chambers were full, some were not. Each prisoner was made to take a chance when it was their turn. If it was empty they lived. If it was not they died. Lori made the comment/question: Do you think if I did that it would work the first time? Then she laughed it off. Then she started talking about our German Shepherd Dog who was aging. Lori said what are we going to do with Champ when he dies? Then she said well it doesn’t matter, if we bury him the worms will eat him anyway! Again she laughed.
I went to bed soon after that part of the movie, I was very tired. Lori came into my bedroom late that night, and stood in my doorway. She was talking to me, and asked are you awake? I remember mumbling back to her yes, but was half asleep still. She looked at the last supper picture I had on the wall, and asked me who was so and so? I don’t remember the name she said. Then she went on to look at her daughters picture on my wall, and said aww, isn’t she so cute! Then the last thing she said to me was “Well I’ll see you in the morning ok?!” and off she went down the hallway, I heard the front door slam as it usually did behind her around that time of night. That night Lori was not sad, depressed, crying, or irritable, just sounded so full of life! Energized.
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I did not know it then, but that was the last time I would hear her voice. That early morning of September 22, 1981 I was getting ready for school. I went into her bedroom to borrow a shirt of hers, and I quietly asked her if I could borrow it? Lori did not answer, so I took it, and got ready to catch the bus. As I walked out the front door down our driveway I had to pass her car, from a far distance all I could see was the color RED. My first thought was “here she goes again, She is trying to fool me again, and this time it looks like she used Ketchup!
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Well as I got closer, I saw my sister through the car window, she was on her side with her head on the armrest of the passenger side door. I could see her face clearly, Her eyes were closed, and there was blood dripping from her mouth, and bottom lip onto the seat. Still I was in total disbelief. Our other sister ran back into the house right away, and was calling me to come with her. I stayed by the car window, pounding on the glass waiting for her move, or waiting for her to laugh because she fooled me again! She did not move, or laugh.
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Our father came out of the house, and broke the driver side window, unlocked the door and got inside the car, reached across Lori’s body to unlock the passenger side door, ran around the car as fast as he could, got in and picked her up to hold her. Lori’s body lay across my fathers lap, and he just kept repeating WHY?
Our father came up to the house finally, hands and clothing full of blood, and said to me, your sister is gone. She had a open casket, I was not going to attend until a friend told me I should go say goodbye or I would regret it later. So I went. I finally went up to the casket where her body lay. All I could remember was the things she had said to me, and done those last weeks of her life. I was afraid, and confused to what had happened to her. It just never made sense! As I sat and looked across the room at her in the casket all I could think of was that this was not real. She was not Dead. She is pretending, etc. Even though In reality I did know she was gone. Just didn’t know why?!
*Lori did not drink,smoke, or do drugs- We had no answers. No clues so we thought. So for decades her sudden change, which followed to her sudden death remained “suspicious!”
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THE NOTE SHE LEFT BEHIND SAID:
“IT’S NOBODY’S FAULT, I JUST FLIPPED!”
(WITH A SMILEY FACE AT THE BOTTOM.)
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Decades later the truth surfaced! Finally I was able to put it all together. In 2009 I was going through my sister’s box of things that I had packed away almost 28 years ago, off the top of her dresser. I came across many things I remembered from the time… one which included a medicine bottle. We knew Lori was put on a medicine to help her with the stress of her divorce, so it was not a surprise to me that I packed the bottle. Like I said we all knew she was taking something for anxiety. Back then it was similar to taking an advil. No big deal. As long as a doctor gave you something, it was ok to take. Safe.
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However..the shock came to me when I typed the name of the drug into the computer just months ago. Slowly it all started to come together, and I mean all of it! As I read the side effects of the medication she was on, it all suddenly linked! Including the things she said, the things she did, the rocking in the chair, the things she was seeing that were not there, and finally to the flu like symptoms that she was displaying shortly before she ended her life at the young age of 25.
-NOW..EVEN THE NOTE SHE LEFT BEHIND MAKES SENSE!….SHE DID FLIP, LOST HER MIND, HOWEVER, SHE DID NOT KNOW IT WAS DUE TO THE CONCEALED SIDE EFFECTS OF A PRESCRIPTION DRUG SHE TOOK FOR JUST A FEW SHORT WEEKS!!
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HERE IS THE WARNING ON THIS SAME DRUG TODAY (2013):
Imipramine and Suicides:
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Your healthcare provider should monitor you (or your child) carefully when you are first starting an antidepressant. You should also be watchful for any signs of suicidal behavior. Contact your healthcare provider right away if you (or your child) have any of the following:
*Thoughts about death or *committing suicide, Suicide attempts, *Depression or anxiety that is new or worse, *Agitation, restlessness, or panic attacks
*Trouble sleeping (insomnia), *Irritability that is new or worse, *Aggressive, angry, or violent behavior, *Acting on dangerous impulses, *Unusually increased talking or activity*Akathisia
An analysis of a large clinical trial published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2008 estimated that up to 35 percent of people taking antipsychotic drugs experience akathisia.
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Symptoms include: Fidgety movements*, Leg swinging while sitting*, Rocking from foot to foot or pacing*, Motor restlessness; inability to sit still*, Feelings of anxiety*, Insomnia*. The combination of these symptoms and depression and impulsiveness may also contribute to aggression and suicide in some patients. Other strange changes in mood or behavior. (* I put a star next to every side effect she had!)
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BLACK BOX WARNING (2004)
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Pharmacosis:
* The first descriptions of a drug causing suicide came in 1955. A few years later in 1958 and again in 1959 the problem was described with imipramine.* Treatment induced suicide became a prominent media issue in 1990 with a paper by Teicher and Cole. (MY SISTER DID NOT HAVE TO DIE!) *It was not until 2004 that regulators and companies conceded that these drugs can cause a problem.
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Closure.
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In 2009 I was able to give our parents some kind of closure to Lori’s death, however, this in no way made up for the three plus decades of pain and suffering they as parents had to endure. Our Mother said: You mean she died because people had to be greedy, and make money? Our Father said: It don’t matter now, because she is gone, and nobody will care! HAD WE KNOWN THE CONCEALED SIDE EFFECTS OF IMIPRAMINE, MY SISTER WOULD BE ALIVE TODAY!
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WELL MY STORY IS NOW ONLINE, AND PEOPLE DO CARE, AND HOPEFULLY LIVES CAN BE SAVED BY READING HER STORY! IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY SISTER… SHE MAY NOW, AFTER ALMOST THREE DECADES, REST IN PEACE.
I LOVE YOU.
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