Pubdate: Sat, 24 Dec 2016
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2016 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/general/30627794.html
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author: Bruce Vielmetti

TEEN CHARGED IN 15-YEAR-OLD'S FATAL OVERDOSE

Among the dozens of tragic stories of heroin abuse this year, one from
Oconomowoc may stand out.

A 15-year-old girl whose mother believes had never tried the drug
before died after trying what her ex-boyfriend told her was cocaine.

That was in July. Now a spray of pine boughs and red ribbons marks the
holidays at Erika Reiner's gravestone, etched with a panda bear and a
musical staff, as her parents struggle through her loss.

The boy, 17-year-old Seth Moretti, is in treatment at a state mental
hospital and facing charges of first-degree reckless homicide. If and
when doctors say he's stable enough to be released, he will move to
the Waukesha County Jail unless he posts $50,000 bail. If he's still
hospitalized, Moretti will appear by video at a Jan. 26 hearing.

According to the criminal complaint filed last week, Moretti lived
with his grandparents, who found both teens unconscious in Moretti's
bedroom the morning of July 9. Emergency medical teams arrived, but
Reiner was already dead. Moretti was unconscious but alive and taken
to Children's Hospital.

Hospital staff later told investigators Moretti said he had given
Reiner heroin but told her it was cocaine. When he realized she was
overdosing, he was too messed up to help he said.

Before she died, during the afternoon and evening of July 8, Reiner
posted to her Facebook and Instagram accounts the night before, that
she feared she had taken heroin, and that Moretti had lied to her
about the drug.

Using Moretti's cell phone and bank records, investigators pieced
together that he had taken $160 out his bank account on July 8, and
purchased a gram of heroin from "Tony" at a McDonald's restaurant.
When Moretti returned home with Reiner late in the afternoon, his
grandfather suspected Moretti might be high on heroin, and about 10
p.m. that evening his grandmother lectured both teens about the
dangers of using the drug, and even searched Moretti's room but found
no evidence of drug use.
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