Never See Them Again by M. William Phelps Page A

survival mechanism for kids in a tough world today of bullying and being constantly judged by what you wear, the music you listen to, and the people with whom you hang around.
    This problematic period of her life began when Rachael entered those final years of high school. Part of it had to do with a bad acne problem Rachael developed during those years, George was convinced, and the fact that Rachael began taking a popular prescription drug for that skin problem. Her “behavioral problems” and going on that drug coincided with each other. George was certain of the connection.
    â€œWe had at first attributed the problems to me and Rachael’s mother being overprotective of our girls. We didn’t let them go out and do a bunch of stuff, and you could have called us ‘very strict.’ ”
    So when Rachael began to get into things, especially after high school, when she expressed a desire to move in with Tiffany in Clear Lake City, George believed part of it was due to Rachael wanting to “go wild a little bit and enjoy some freedom” from her overbearing parents. Many kids do this. That first year out of high school, if the kid doesn’t head directly off to college, becomes a transitional year; it’s a time to think about the road ahead, and what life was going to offer.
    When Rachael went on that acne drug, she was prescribed forty-five milligrams a day. It was early in the life of the drug.
    â€œToday,” George said, “you can’t get over twenty milligrams, and only one out of every ten dermatologists will put a kid on the stuff because of all the class-action lawsuits related to [it].”
    The side effects most associated with this particular drug include mood swings, an increased rate of suicide, colitis, Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, severe depression, liver damage, and so on.
    â€œWe wonder when we look back over that last two years of her life, if some of her acting out was related to taking that drug.”
    George wasn’t blaming the drug for his daughter’s risky behavior. But as many of the witnesses coming forward had explained to Tom Ladd and Phil Yochum, Tiffany and Rachael were exceptionally naïve to their surroundings and the people they hung around with in Houston. Casual drug use—picking up some cocaine on a Friday night and having a party with friends at the house, snorting a couple lines, having some beers, talking all that gibberish about saving the world people high on coke often do—was certainly one thing. Dealing grams and “eight balls” (an eighth of an ounce) was quite another.

CHAPTER 11
    R ACHAEL KOLOROUTIS MET Tiffany Rowell at Clear Lake High School in 1999. They became best friends almost immediately. If Clear Lake High sounds familiar in the realm of crime circles, it is probably because during a period between September and October 1984 the school was thrust into the national spotlight when six students supposedly made what some claimed was a “suicide pact” and killed themselves. The story drew the New York Times and other major media outlets.
    This idea that students had all agreed to commit suicide together, however, turned out to be something of an urban legend.
    â€œRumors of a pact in which 20 to 30 students swore to commit suicide within six weeks,” a Times article written in late 1984 noted, “were generated by a student who, according to the students and counseling staff, circulated the story ‘as a lark.’ ”
    Prank or not, the school had quite the reputation before it was tarnished by this dark cloud. If not for that one instance of gossip getting out of control, Clear Lake High was celebrated for producing some of the more engaging star athletes in professional sports: Major League Baseball relief pitcher Jon Switzer, National Football League players Craig Veasey, Jeff Novak, and Seth and Steve McKinney, and even Ultimate Fighting Championship