Last year, Zachary Behrens, 17, died as a result of drowning in a U.S. Silica sandpit on the West Side of Ottawa after a car he was operating crashed June 16 headlong into the deep quarry.
Local authorities expressed shock when toxicology results confirmed Behrens was under the influence of LSD and marijuana at the time of the crash, according to La Salle County Coroner Jody Bernard.
At the time, Templeton called the forensic findings startling.
"We haven't and don't see LSD around here very much -- in fact, our county drug task force and I haven't dealt with that drug in a long time," said Templeton weeks after Behrens' death. He could not remember the last time his department made an arrest for possession of the hallucinogenic substance.
"Back in the 1970s, we saw (LSD) quite a bit, but these days, no," Templeton said.
Even more surprising to Templeton and Bernard was how Behrens obtained the LSD before his death by impaired driving.
Subsequent investigations by the La Salle County Sheriff's and Coroner's Offices found the 2014 La Salle-Peru High School honor student had ordered the substance online from "the dark side of the Internet," Templeton said.
The sheriff revealed the teen ordered the substance off a website known as Silk Road and had the LSD shipped by mail straight to his home.
It was the first time local authorities even heard of the site.
Last Friday, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Ross W. Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road -- an international notorious online marketplace for the sale of heroin, cocaine, LSD and other illegal drugs -- was sentenced to life in prison, according to national media sources.
Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced by the judge, Katherine B. Forrest, for his role as what prosecutors described as "the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise."
Ulbricht had faced a minimum of 20 years in prison on one of the counts for which he was convicted. But in handing down a much longer sentence, Judge Forrest told Ulbricht that "what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric."
Ulbricht's high-tech drug bazaar operated in a hidden part of the Internet sometimes known as the dark web, which allowed deals to be made anonymously and out of the reach of law enforcement. In Silk Road's nearly three years of operation, more than 1.5 million transactions were carried out, involving several thousand seller accounts and more than 100,000 buyer accounts, the authorities have said.
In October 2013, federal authorities shut down the Silk Road marketplace in what many praised at the time as a great success in the war on drugs.
Only weeks later, Silk Road 2.0 took its place.
"Make no mistake, Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people's addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people," Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
Templeton said Monday he believes the stiff sentence against Ulbricht was justified.
"I feel a life sentence is appropriate for all the harm this man has done," the sheriff said. "The sentence was all about the people's lives he destroyed, including Zachary Behrens'. This man (Ulbricht) is beneath contempt."
Templeton said he spoke with Behrens' mother. Jodi (Stefan) Margurite, of La Salle, Monday after he learned of the verdict and sentence.
"I called her to make sure that she knew there was some justice done (in her son's death)," he said.
Last summer, Behrens' family issued this prepared statement to the public:
"Zachary was a wonderful, intelligent, loving young man. Zach was funny and always willing to help other people. He was an honor roll student, enrolled in the Air Force, never got into trouble and had a bright, promising future ahead of him. We couldn't have asked for a better son or brother. Our family is completely devastated by this tragedy ... "
The card crash happened in June 2014 as originally reported here, and it would make much more sense if the LSD had been ordered through Silk Road 2 rather than Silk Road. Other than the obvious general nonsense the article is vague and confusing on that particular point.
So let's get this straight, someone takes LSD and has an accident its the fault of the person who created the site they bought it on? thats like blaming the contractors who built the bar where someone got drunk and had an accident later on. The only person responsible is the idiot who decided to go driving on LSD.