PROZAC: DOSAGE INCREASED ONE WEEK BEFORE RAMPAGE BY MINNESOTA TEEN-AGER

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Thu, 24 Mar 2005 23:52:14 -0500

 

 

[sSRI-Research] PROZAC: DOSAGE INCREASED ONE WEEK BEFORE

RAMPAGE BY MINNESOTA TEEN-AGER

 

 

Paragraphs 8 & 9 read: " Dosage increased "

 

" Weise's relatives " knew he had a problem with depression, and they

took him to treatment, " Cook said. " He was getting counseling. " His

medication dosage had been increased a week earlier, Cook added "

 

http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5312255.html

 

 

BEMIDJI, MINN. -- Jeffrey Weise had " a good relationship " with the

grandfather he shot and killed on Monday as prelude to his deadly

assault on students and others at Red Lake High School, according to

relatives who are struggling to understand what might have pushed the

teenager from sometimes bizarre behavior to mass murder and suicide.

 

They have sifted through the traumas of his childhood: his father's

suicide, the car accident that left his mother with reduced mental

capacity, the shuttling between the Red Lake Reservation and the Twin

Cities, and the taunts of peers over his appearance, size and outsider

behavior.

 

They wondered, too, about medication he was supposedly taking for

depression, and a recent increase in his prescribed dosage.

 

Lee Cook, director of the American Indian Cultural Center at Bemidji

State University and a first cousin to Sgt. Daryl (Dash) Lussier, the

grandfather, talked about the tragedy Thursday after meeting on the

reservation with Lussier's brother, three daughters and other family

members.

 

Jeff Weise

Polaris Images

 

" The daughters said Jeff loved his grandfather, and his grandfather

loved him, " Cook said. " There had never been any serious differences

or harsh words between them.

 

" They were surprised by all of this, but they were stunned he would

shoot his grandfather. "

 

The .22-caliber rifle that Weise apparently used to kill Lussier and

his companion, Michele Sigana, " might have been Dash's rifle, one he

kept around for the kids for hunting, " Cook said.

 

Dosage increased

 

Weise's relatives " knew he had a problem with depression, and they

took him to treatment, " Cook said. " He was getting counseling. " His

medication dosage had been increased a week earlier, Cook added.

 

His grandmother, Shelda Lussier, 54, said he saw a mental health

professional at Red Lake Hospital on Feb. 21, the same day his

prescription was refilled for 60 milligrams a day of Prozac, which he

had been taking since last summer, the Washington Post reported.

 

Studies have linked Prozac and similar antidepressants to a greater

risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in kids. In October, the Food

and Drug Administration revised the drugs' packaging to warn health

professionals that they should closely monitor young patients when an

antidepressant is prescribed or the dose is changed.

 

Prozac's manufacturer said monitoring patients being treated for

depression is critical, especially if they are children.

 

Weise, in hundreds of postings attributed to him on the Internet over

the past year or so, noted that he was on antidepressants, was going

through therapy in Thief River Falls and had attempted suicide at

least once by cutting his wrists.

 

In a posting in January, Weise also wrote of his regret over not

having ended his life and hinted that another attempt could be on the

way. Friends of Weise said this week that he had tried to kill himself

earlier this year.

 

School officials and others have refused to discuss his medical

situation except to confirm that he was placed on " homebound status "

this year for an unspecified medical problem.

 

Relatives also " knew he spent time on the Internet, but they didn't

really know what he was into there, " Cook said, and reports detailing

Weise's postings on a Nazi web site have them shaking their heads.

 

Weise, under a variety of user names, also visited other sites dealing

with everything from government conspiracies to surviving school

shootings. Last fall he posted a bloody animated video on the Internet

in which four people are shot to death before the gunman shoots

himself. " He was brighter than usual and had a vocabulary more like a

college student than a 16-year-old, " Cook said.

 

School to school

 

Weise also had a traumatic early childhood, moving from school to

school and experiencing the loss of both parents before he was 10

years old. His father, Daryl Lussier Jr., committed suicide in July

1997 during a police stand-off on the reservation. Weise's mother,

Joanne, suffered brain damage in 1999 when she and a friend crashed

their car after drinking.

 

Shortly after his father's suicide, Weise enrolled in the fourth grade

at B.F. Pearson Elementary School in Shakopee in September 1997. He

stayed until the first week of his fifth-grade year, at which point he

was withdrawn and enrolled at Bluff Creek Elementary School in Chaska.

 

Bluff Creek Principal Cath Gallagher said Weise left school in April

1998, about a month after his mother's traffic accident.

 

In his Internet postings, Weise said that before her accident his

mother would hit him often, yell at him and tell him that his birth

had been a mistake.

 

According to his Internet writings, Weise dressed in a " Goth " style

with a long black coat, black boots and at times red hair spiked into

devil's horns.

 

" I just don't know if anybody gave a lot of credence to the turmoil

this guy lived with, " Cook said. People said he was " just going

through a phase " with his unusual appearance and outsider attitudes,

" and that probably was devastating to him. "

 

" I think you can get to the point where you feel you have no relief.

Maybe he thought his grandpa should have been more cognizant of that. "

 

Visitation for Lussier and his girlfriend, Michelle Sigana, began

Thursday at the Humanities Building in Red Lake. Funeral services for

them will be held there at 10 a.m. Saturday.

 

Chuck Haga is at crhaga.