Mom of dead addict helps other parents cope with drug deaths

Ria Coesel tried for years to help her youngest child overcome drug addiction with everything from counseling to boot camp to rehabilitation. In a way Coesel is still trying to rescue her daughter, from obscurity.

Her daughter Anke Furber, was found dead Sept. 25, 2005, in a vineyard in Norcross, about 30 miles from her Marietta home. Someone shot her, then set her body on fire.

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Vino Wong/vwong@ajc.com

Ria Coesel’s daughter, Anke Furber, was killed in 2005. Police say the slaying was likely drug-related.

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Gwinnett police believe the slaying may have been drug related, but a suspect has never been identified. Coesel is fighting for justice even as she battles to raise public awareness about drug-related deaths.

“I’m jealous sometimes of these people whose children died a normal death like a car accident. Isn’t that whacked?” Coesel said. “There is such a stigma with drug-related deaths.”

Coesel spends several hours a day sitting at the computer in Furber’s old bedroom, surrounded by her stuffed animals and drawings. She monitors a Myspace page she set up to bring in tips about the slaying. Coesel has also reached out to others — facilitating a support group for grieving parents at The Compassionate Friends chapter in Marietta and becoming involved with a Web site called Friends Don’t Let Friends Die. The Web site memorializes children who died because their supposed “friends” failed to get them help.

D.D. Flynn, another mother whose child is featured on the Web site, says she befriended Coesel several years ago “for all the wrong reasons.” She, too, lost a daughter to drugs.

Flynn’s daughter, Christi Nowak, 20, suffered seizures from an overdose of cocaine, a date-rape drug called GHB and chloroform at her family’s home in Woodstock on Oct. 1, 2005. There were ropes around Nowak’s feet, poles on her legs and her face was covered with a deflated air mattress. Evidence at the scene also indicated that someone left her in distress rather than getting help.

Woodstock Police have not been able to determine who was with Nowak when she overdosed, but that person could be charged with felony murder for providing drugs that resulted in someone’s death.

A total of 28,723 people died of drug-induced causes in the United States in 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

About 3.9 percent, or 583, of the 14,831 homicides in 2007 in which circumstances were known were drug-related, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Both Coesel’s and Flynn’s daughters were first exposed to drugs in sixth grade. Steve Pasierb, president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said most children have their first opportunity to try drugs in middle school.

“We have to accept the fact that while prevention is important, kids do try drugs,” Pasierb said. “As a parent, look at it as a health threat to your kid, not a moral failing, not a legal issue. Protect your kids’ health by being engaged on this issue.”

Partnership for a Drug Free America offers resources on how to respond when you suspect your child is using drugs on its Web site, www.drugfree.org. Parents need to open a dialogue with children about drugs, Pasierb said.

Coesel hopes that sharing her daughter’s tragic story may prompt others headed down the wrong path to make a turnaround.

“Even if we save one life, it is better than nothing,” Coesel said.