Lance Dyer is ready for Lafayette to hear his story. Dyer is from rural Georgia, and he’s a top witness in the federal government’s case against the nine Curious Goods conspirators.
Dyer will get his chance to talk come Jan. 17. That’s the day he’s scheduled to appear here in federal court to give a victim impact statement during the sentencing hearings of Drew T. Green and Thomas W. Malone Jr.
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Green and Malone represent the highest links in the Curious Good conspiracy chain and are the admitted masterminds of a multi-million dollar research chemical empire responsible for smokable synthetic products like “Mr. Miyagi,” the synthetic marijuana at the heart of the Curious Goods case.
“We rang the bell on these guys,” says Dyer. “We’re the first ones to be able to bring it all back to the distributors, not just the store or head shop that sold the product. I found these guys by searching trade link groups where they were advertising their products.”
Dyer’s 14-year-old son, Dakota, smoked Mr. Miyagi once, on March 10, 2012, and in less than two hours found a pistol and took his own life.
Haralson Country Coroner Daniel Hutcheson tells IND Monthly he remembers investigating Dakota’s death. So far, he says, it’s the first and only case of its kind in the rural Georgia community.
Dakota’s official cause of death is listed as “self-inflicted,” Hutcheson says. “The official cause of death does not mention synthetic marijuana,” the coroner continues. “But based on the evidence collected from my investigation, my report does mention the role synthetic marijuana played in Dakota’s death.”
Hutcheson’s report names Mr. Miyagi specifically as the chemical responsible for inciting the “psychotic” episode experienced by Dakota Dyer right before his suicide.
Following January’s sentencing hearing, Dyer is scheduled to return to Lafayette in July to testify against the remaining seven
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defendants, including Lafayette criminal defense attorney Daniel Stanford, Curious Goods owner Richard Buswell and his partner/lawyer Barry Domingue.
“I’ve come from the dark side, and I hope these narco-terrorists and merchants of death realize they’re staring down the barrel of federal time,” Dyer says.
The next year for Dyer will be busy compiling a database for the victims of research chemicals, a project he is spearheading through the Dakota Dyer Foundation.
“Our organization is in the process of compiling all the names, ages, locations, what products they used and what mental or physical repercussions came of it,” says Dyer. “Us, and eight similar organizations throughout the country are sending out blanket contact to the parents of victims. The information we’re looking for, we’ll get it.”
Click here, here and here for more of IND Monthly's coverage on the Curious Goods conspiracy.
Check out the Dakota Dyer Foundation here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
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MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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