Jury: youths died from prescription overdose

Two Carpentersville youths died earlier this year from an accidental overdose of a prescription drug, a jury ruled this week.

Although their systems also contained illegal drugs, it was their doses of a prescription drug that in February killed Eric F. Landeros, 18, and Florencio Reyes Jr., 20, said Kane County Coroner Chuck West.

Reyes' toxicology report revealed marijuana, alcohol and the prescription drugs oxycodone and oxymorphone were present in his system, West said.

The results of Landeros' report showed he had cocaine, marijuana, caffeine, oxycodone and oxymorphone in his system, West said.

It was the oxycodone that proved fatal, West said.

Both had not only taken 10 times the recommended dosage of oxycodone, but had also crushed the pills and snorted them, a process that puts you in direct contact with the drug, sometimes resulting in an elevated high, West said.

Oxycodone, used to treat moderate and severe pain, made news earlier this year when it was one of the prescription drugs found in 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger's system when he died of an accidental overdose in January.

Reyes and Landeros were together Feb. 9, the night they ingested the painkiller, according to police. They died the next day.

The two, graduates of Dundee-Crown High School, were otherwise healthy, West said.

"It was no physiological problem that could have accounted for the death," West said. "It was all drug-related."