07/27/2022
This is Amanda's Story.....
Amanda was born in 1992. Her father was an alcoholic and m**h addict whom I thought I could "fix" after marriage. I was wrong. After leaving her birth father I eventually married the kid's step father and Amanda and her brother were raised in New Mexico. We had a colony of 250 chimpanzees and were active in AIDS/Hepatitis medical research so the kids had an upper middle class lifestyle. It is important to note that Amanda's birth father had very little to do with her after our divorce and I believe that played a critical role in her future mental state along with the choices she made with men.
In 2010, Amanda graduated from high school and had elective surgery. She was prescribed Oxycontin for the 1st time.
In 2013 Rick and I were living in Seattle. Amanda was attending UNM in Albuquerque on a full ride scholarship. I had given her a credit card for emergency use and in 3 years she had never used it. Now, it was maxed out with cash advances. That is when I knew there was a serious problem.
I fly to Albq. the next morning, unannounced. When I landed I called Amanda who let me sit at the airport for 3 hours while she got high before picking me up. Meanwhile, her brother is driving from California to take her to rehab while I closed her life at UNM and in Albuquerque.
(I think at this time it is important to note that Mikey, her brother has a successful Naval career, 2 deployments and is justifiably feeling punished, forgotten, not as important as he is the "good" kid.)
Amanda stays in her 1st rehab. A $15,000/week "rehab" with long walks on the beach and hot dog roasts in California. This facility puts her on suboxone.
After her 6 week rehab is completed I move her to Seattle, with us. Amanda loved the Pacific Northwest and was working, making friends. She relapses and in 2014 I sent her to a place I thought would be the safest for her, Salt Lake City. I was wrong. Amanda leaves rehab #2 and ends up living with another addict. He**in is dealt on Temple Square, kept in hollowed out Book of Mormon. It is everywhere and ended up being the easiest place to acquire he**in she had ever lived.
This is where I witnessed Amanda overdose twice, both over facetime as her addict "finance" called me while paramedics worked on her. I later learned that as soon as those paramedics walked out the door, they shot up again. That ends Salt Lake for her and I move her back to Seattle. Amanda tries group meetings and individual therapy and is back on suboxone.
In 2016 the 3 of us move to South Carolina. It is at this time she requests to be called by her middle name Paige as 'the old addict Amanda is gone'. Paige is doing great in SC. She loves her new Doctor and the 2 of them decide to taper her off suboxone as she hates the control it has over her life. She does it! While still not sober (drinking, marajuana), I think we have crossed one hurdle.
2017 I get a call to pick up Paige who is incoherent on benzo's. This is awful. REALLY BAD. So I get her into a State run facility in North Carolina and it works! It scares her sober....
2018 Rick gets a great career offer in Jacksonville. At this point he has "had it". He tells me that if Paige moves with us, he will file for a divorce. We have lived in Paige's insanity of addiction for years and he cannot do it anymore. I understand where he is coming from, I'm exhausted as well. We talk to Paige and she agrees that it is time for her to leave. She feels strong this time. Different. We all move.
Paige goes to Santa Fe and is with a guy, a good guy. They move in together and get engaged.
Covid. New Mexico shuts down. Paige has an incredible job with an incredible company as a bartender. It's a place where customers become friends and family and lives get intertwined. A wonderful place, a brewery. They allow employees to work in other areas in the company through the pandemic and Paige meets a guy in packaging named Travis. Travis was the beginning of the end of her life.
I remember her telling me about him. How he was a tattoo artist who took pleasure in hanging by his flesh, from hooks in the ceiling. I remember she hung up the phone on me after not liking my response. It was also this Travis who had tatted her back to look like spray paint graffiti before she died. He tagged my daughter and I had no idea.
2020 Paige kicks Justin out and moves Travis in. It is at this time they "come out" as a couple and Travis begins to brag how much he loves dosing Paige with he**in so that he is able to do with her whatever he wants sexually. Apparently this is what Travis does and, 'he knows what he's doing'. Travis knows she is smoking straight fentanyl as he is too.
When we talk, I can tell Paige is using. She denies it, of course. She is so thin. She tells me her customers are concerned because she is so thin. She tells them it is because she is getting back to work and is so busy. She walks too much and has no time to eat. They believe her. You see, Paige is exceptionally beautiful, she does not look like a ju**ie! She is too pretty to be an addict. This is not their fault. This is public perception. But I know. So I send her a text and tell her I want nothing to do with her while she is using.
In June, Paige calls and says she needs to get her "head together". She's gotten herself off everything and she just needs me. I buy her a ticket to Jacksonville. She lands. She looks thin but I can tell she is sober. We talk exclusively about her mental health. For the 1st time Paige agrees to go get out-patient therapy on her own. The next day she asked to borrow the truck to get ci******es, and then left for 2 days with a bottle of scotch. She comes home the evening before she leaves for Santa Fe.
September 30, 2020. Paige is moving to an apartment and facetime's Rick and I so that we can see her new place. I can tell she is high so I stay on the call for the walk-thru but as soon as that part was done I told her that I could tell she was high and I didn't want to talk to her. I left the conversation. The last words I ever said to my only daughter were "I'm proud of you and I love you". She and Rick continued to talk for another 20 minutes.
October 1, 2020. For some reason, Rick happens to be home. We are having our morning coffee. and his phone rings. He just says "that's weird, its Justin". I knew, I knew instinctively and stand up. I wait for the words and then I hear them "She's dead. Amanda is dead". And things go dark for a while.
I'm hysterical and call the New Mexico State Police in Santa Fe. I am hysterical. I tell the officer that my daughter was murdered. I gave them Travis' full name. I'm hysterical. The officer asks me if my daughter lives "in the big house on the hill" I tell him "Yes!! That's her!" He kinda chuckles and tells me that he is "very aware" of my daughter and her house. (WHAT?!?! What is he talking about)??
I am hysterical. He tells me that this was nothing more than a common overdose. It is not going to be investigated. Now, whatever that emotion is that is beyond hysterical, that is me right now. I overreact. I cannot help myself. I yell "I want to speak to your boss". He puts me on hold and comes back to tell me that his boss agrees with him. It's just another addict overdose, and I lose my mind and he hangs up the phone on me.
I call Paige's friends who Travis had bragged to and they call the State Troopers to report Travis dosing Paige as well.
Later that morning a kind, compassionate trooper called me to make the death notification. He apologizes for the 1st trooper. He is calling from "the scene", the medical examiner is there. It looks like a straight overdose and the medical examiner expects that as well. He tells me what Travis said happened. He also tells me that the week before Travis came home to find Paige unresponsive at the mailbox and had to call 911 to revive her. Travis told no one.
My phone rings and it's Travis. He is crying and telling me a sanctimonious story of how he tried to save her. It made no sense and was different from his story he told the State Troopers. I listen until he starts to describe the shade of purple of my baby's body and I hang up.
Rick and I fly to Santa Fe. We begin to clean her house and find a brown paper bag full of what (we all) think is black tar he**in. We call the State Police again and are informed they have no where to keep it and no way to dispose of it and refuse to take it. Refuse. Rick and I are driving her dog and her cat, in her car, back to Florida and cannot be traveling with a bag of (what we all think is) he**in. So we throw it away. In the trash.
Travis calls me again and wants Paige's ashes so he can tattoo her into him "forever".
Meanwhile we are having a memorial for Paige. The Brewery shuts down and provides us with a venue and music and food and it was wonderful. But, Travis still works there. He shows up. My husband and a friend literally chased him off the property. 100's of her friends and loved one's attend. I gave those who wanted some of her ashes. They have Paige in their homes, planted with trees and scattered her ashes in their travels. She is everywhere.
Amanda Paige is survived by myself and her step-father, her beloved dog Duck and cat, Jaspurr. A Grandmother who she adored and called "Da", her Aunt Kris. Her brother Michael, his wife Chelsea and a niece, Eva whom she never met.
As far as I know, Travis still works at the brewery. The Santa Fe Police refuse to look at my daughter's death and my life is ruined.
Thank you Andrea Somerfield Lee for sharing your beautiful Daughter's story. Rest in Paradise Amanda
