Prescription Drugs Take a Young Life

Reaching across the top of a wooden casket as it slowly rolled past more than 1,000 mourners in the pews of the St. Monica Parish, sisters Chloe and Hailey tightly held each other’s hands. Walking in front of them was their little brother, Bryce, and father Michael. Together, as their eyes welled with tears and lips pursed, they said their final goodbyes to 15-year-old Madison “Maddie” Kiefer.

Maddie grew up with her family in the Village of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. Although there aren’t white picket fences lining the perfectly trimmed yards of expensive lake-access homes, the neighborhood was home to Milwaukee’s well-to-do families.

Maddie, as described in her obituary, was a kind-hearted soul, with an adoring, bright smile, a charismatic laugh, and a tender heart. She enjoyed playing soccer, spending time with the family dog, and cooking crepes. But behind the scenes, Maddie had experienced her share of down moments.

In 2002, while Maddie was attending St. Monica Grade School, Maddie’s mother, Catherine, lost her battle with cancer. Her father, Michael, worked out of town and often left Maddie and her siblings home with a babysitter.

To keep busy, the Kiefer children spent their time with friends from school. Hailey, the middle child, often invited her best friend, Margaret Wuesthoff, to hang out around the house. Margaret said Maddie wasn’t an annoying little sister, even though she followed Hailey around the house. To get back at her, Margaret and Hailey liked to pull harmless pranks. And one afternoon, when Maddie wasn’t home, it was go-time.

“(It was) probably the best prank I’ve pulled on anyone,” Margaret said.

Margaret and Hailey snuck into Maddie’s room and stole her deodorant stick. The girls quickly ran into the kitchen, emptied the deodorant from its plastic container into the trash bin, and scooped in some white, thick cream cheese to fill its place.

“I never heard what happened to that, but I don’t think she noticed for awhile,” Margaret said.

A few years later, and after Catherine’s death, Michael began dating again. He met Peggy Weber, a Christian woman with three children of her own. It wasn’t long before the Webers and Kiefers became a modern-day Brady Bunch.

“I imagine it was uncomfortable and hard at first,” Margaret said. “(But it helped) so the dad wasn’t alone. She was a support system and womanly role model.”

It seemed as if life was slowly falling back into place, until the morning of Sunday, March 1, 2009.

“For the most part, the Kiefers did very little. They kept to themselves,” said the Rev. Jerry Herda of the St. Monica Parish.

“But when this all happened…I got a call right away and went over to the house.”

Maddie had been abusing drugs for two years. Her experimentation was regarded as “normal” for teens in Whitefish Bay; even Hailey had been known to use them.

Transitioning from a Catholic grade school of 40 kids per class, to Whitefish Bay High School, a much larger public school, could have been to blame. Maddie was trying to adapt to a new environment.

“In the North Shore… kids are able to get what they want. A lot of the problems can go hidden and undetected,” Herda said.

“Maddie was experimenting with drugs, as a lot of people do in high school… I wouldn’t characterize her as a drug addict. It wasn’t anything crazy, like hard drugs. It was pills,” Margaret said.

She said she knew Maddie had taken prescription pills out of her parents’ medicine cabinets “to see what happens.”

According to research by the Journal Sentinel, one in five teens say they have abused prescription painkillers. And 60 percent of teens who have abused prescription painkillers did so before the age of 15.

A doctor told a medical examiner’s investigator that Maddie also had a history of alcohol problems, using marijuana, and was prescribed medications by a psychiatrist.  Michael told the investigator Maddie had been trying to party before entering treatment, which was scheduled for the following Tuesday.

On Saturday night, Maddie successfully snuck out and went to the home of Matthew Laughrin, also located in the Village of Whitefish Bay.

Margaret said she lived near Matthew at the time and had often seen a squad car parked a block from the house.

Laughrin had two felony drug convictions.

According to the Journal Sentinel, Maddie had crushed and snorted Clonazepam, a medicine prescribed for seizure and panic disorders, earlier that day. And that night inside Matthew’s home, Maddie did more than smoke marijuana – the initial kind of partying Michael had thought she went looking to do.

Instead, Laughrin offered Maddie one Suboxone pill, a synthetic opioid prescribed to heroin and painkiller addicts. He had purchased the pill from Brittany Blue, an 18-year-old from Glendale.

Maddie was not addicted to heroin, so she did not have a medical use for those kinds of pills. According the the Milwaukee County medical examiner, it was the combination of Clonazepam and Suboxone that killed her. She also appeared to have self-inflicted cuts on her arms and wrists.

According to the CDC, the medical use of opioids has increased in the past 15 years. The Journal Sentinel found the most common of these drugs, related to overdoses in the Milwaukee-area, are methadone, oxycodone and morphine.

Although Maddie took the Suboxone pill in the evening, she didn’t die until the morning. Matthew and his father, Richard Laughrin, noticed that Maddie was not looking well. They brought her unconscious body to the home of one of Maddie’s friends who had been aware of her drug use, and left her in the driveway.

Michael and Peggy arrived at Maddie’s friend’s house to find members of the North Shore Fire Department trying to revive her. It was too late.

Maddie’s death came as a shock.

“The whole community shifted. I think there were a lot of things (drugs) going on before that seemed innocent enough, but when something like this happens, everyone was on high alert,” Margaret said.

Margaret remembers parents drug testing their teens and shutting down parties for months after Maddie’s death. A few students were sent to boarding school, including Margaret.

Some friends of Maddie said they had been worried about her since she began high school. Two students shared their opinions with the Journal Sentinel.

“Maddie attracted so many people with her personality, good and bad,” said Natalie Sivilotti.

“To a T, the story of just going down the wrong path,” said student Kevin Tight.

A prayer service was convened the next evening by a youth minister at St. Monica Parish. More than 300 students attended, crying and asking how something like this could possibly happen.

It wasn’t long before the day of the funeral came: Friday, March 6, 2009. Dressed in black, the Kiefer and Weber family sat at the front of the parish. More than 1,000 people packed the church pews and filled the standing-room sections. Weeping could be heard over the church choir. Herda treated the day as a celebration of life and life’s lessons.

“Maddie loved others, but she wasn’t able to love herself enough to get the help that she needed, and that’s the tragedy of the situation,” Herda said.

Michael rose from his seat and stood next to a poster-sized portrait of Maddie.

“Nobody ever brought more joy into our home and into our lives than Maddie,” he began.

He recalled the many traits Maddie shared with her mother, Catherine. He ended with his most recent memory.

“The last words I heard her say to me on Saturday night will stay with me forever. Those words were, ‘Good night, Dad. I love you, too.’”

Herda said the funeral service was difficult, but the media crews surrounding St. Monica were even worse.

“It was headline news for multiple days. Can you imagine (attending) a funeral and having a line of cameras outside watching your every move? So it became this sensational story,” he said.

The media also followed the story into the courtroom, interested in the results of those charged in relation to Maddie’s death:

Brittany Blue plead guilty to felony delivery of Suboxone. She was sentenced to three years in prison.

Richard Laughrin plead no contest to a felony charge of child abandonment. He was sentenced to two years in prison and two years extended supervision.

Matthew Laughrin plead guilty to second-degree reckless homicide, possession of THC, and possession with intent to deliver Suboxone.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet reprimanded Matthew Laughrin for selling drugs to teens, even after overdoses of his own and brain damage.

“I distinguish the addiction from the choice that Mr. Laughrin made to sell drugs to Maddie Kiefer,” she said.

Dallet felt anger toward Matthew’s decision not to help Maddie after finding her unresponsive. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and 10 years extended supervision.

The Kiefer family grieves the loss of Maddie each day, but continues on with their lives: Michael and Peggy married in 2013, Chloe traveled to Europe to play soccer, Hailey is studying political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and Bryce is attending his final year of high school at Dominican in Whitefish Bay.

Herda remains at St. Monica. For him, thinking back on the event is never easy.

“My sense is that there seems to be more pressure on kids. It’s getting to the point where it’s like they have to try to figure out their lives when they’re a freshmen in high school. Where are you going to college? What are you going to do with your life? I don’t know if kids can be kids anymore.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that from the years 2002 to 2009, when Maddie died, more than 600 Milwaukee-area residents died from prescription drug overdoses.

Herda is hopeful that the community will help teens overcome the struggle of drug use.

“To think that this funeral didn’t really have to happen, that’s the sad part of it… We’ve gotten to a point where we think, ‘Well, OK, that’s another one. It’s like no, we have to make some changes and do something about it. Our society is going down the wrong path, and hopefully change will come soon.”

More information:

According to research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the number of high school seniors using narcotics (including opioids) has dropped in recent years. 9.1 percent had reported using these drugs in 2004, 7.1 percent in 2013, and 6.1 percent in 2014.

If you or a loved one is struggling with substance abuse, please visit the Wisconsin Department of Health Service’s website at www.dhs.wisconsin.gov to learn what you can do to get help.