<p>Follow up, with warning signs of drug use:</p>
<p>"Family remembers another Meaghan</p>
<p>She grew up with horses and adoring parents. Then came cocaine, drug dealers and a nightmarish ending.</p>
<p>11:17 AM CDT on Friday, May 25, 2007
By SCOTT FARWELL and JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
<a href="mailto:sfarwell@dallasnews.com">sfarwell@dallasnews.com</a> and <a href="mailto:jtrahan@dallasnews.com">jtrahan@dallasnews.com</a> </p>
<p>Meaghan Bosch was born into money, blessed with brains and beauty, outfitted in designer clothes and accessorized with diamonds. </p>
<p>Her tight-knit family vacationed in the Caribbean and Costa Rica, indulged her passion for thoroughbred horses and decorated her bedroom with cascading sheets of golden silk, creating the sanctuary of a princess. </p>
<p>Ms. Bosch, a 21-year-old student at Southern Methodist University, lived a fairytale life without the happy ending. Her decomposing body was discovered last week in the bottom of a portable toilet in Hewitt, a small town about two hours south of Dallas. </p>
<p>Meaghan Bosch Police believe the young woman with long brown curls, a megawatt smile and sarcastic sense of humor died of a drug overdose. She was known to snort cocaine, abuse prescription pills, dabble in “ecstasy,” smoke pot and drink alcohol. </p>
<p>But the mystery lingers about Ms. Bosch’s final hours and how she ended up in a foul resting place behind a fading strip center nine miles south of Waco. </p>
<p>Police don’t know who wrapped her clothed corpse in a blanket but apparently removed her shoes. Her purse and cellphone were missing, but investigators do not know why three diamonds in her ears and rings on her fingers were left undisturbed. </p>
<p>But perhaps most troubling – especially for Ms. Bosch’s McKinney family – are questions about what precipitated her cocaine-induced spiral of self-destruction. </p>
<p>In recent months, Ms. Bosch had lost as much as 20 pounds, stopped going to class and didn’t call her parents. She was depressed but refused to take her anti-depressant medicine, and she became defensive when confronted about her red, runny nose. </p>
<p>“This was a kid who got involved in drugs and shouldn’t have, and that’s the truth,” said her mother, Lynn, sobbing. “But she wasn’t some person living on the street shooting up heroin. This wasn’t a street-smart kid, this was a kid who spent every day of her life taking care of her horse.” </p>
<p>The week before Meaghan died, Lynn Bosch helped install a granite countertop, new sink and backsplash with travertine tiles in a northeast Dallas condo she and her husband purchased for their daughter near SMU. </p>
<p>As was her habit, the doting mother brought an armful of new clothes for her daughter. When they walked into the bedroom to try on the outfits, Ms. Bosch pulled back the comforter on her bed. </p>
<p>There, a coiled dollar bill – commonly used to snort cocaine – lay on the sheets. </p>
<p>The mother and daughter looked at each other, knowing. </p>
<p>“Mom, don’t be angry with me,” the young woman said. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” </p>
<p>“Well, I’m just worried about you,” Lynn said. </p>
<p>“Nothing’s going to happen to me. What would happen to me, mom?” </p>
<p>New people in her life
Six days later, Ms. Bosch disappeared after meeting with a convicted murderer and suspected drug dealer, 46-year-old James McDaniel, about 3 p.m. at an On The Border restaurant on Knox Street. </p>
<p>Police are continuing to interview suspects in the case, including Ms. Bosch’s current and former boyfriends, as well as other people associated with her drug use. </p>
<p>James McDaniel After Mr. McDaniel spent several days on the lam, U.S. marshals found him unconscious Wednesday in a female SMU student’s apartment in University Park. He was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he regained his senses, refused treatment and almost immediately asked for an attorney. </p>
<p>He was arrested in connection with a 2005 aggravated sexual assault and a parole violation. </p>
<p>In 1979, Mr. McDaniel was convicted in the shooting death of former Dallas police Officer James Burt Horan. </p>
<p>Mr. McDaniel served 22 years in prison and was paroled in 2001. </p>
<p>In the intervening years, police say, Mr. McDaniel opened an underground poker joint called Premier Platinum near Mockingbird Lane and Central Expressway. Police believe the location attracted SMU students for poker – and sometimes drugs. </p>
<p>Mr. McDaniel has not been charged with any crime related to Ms. Bosch’s disappearance or death. </p>
<p>Ms. Bosch met Mr. McDaniel through friends in February, her mother said. </p>
<p>“We hadn’t seen each other in a few months, and it seemed she was distracted by her new boyfriend,” said Emily Hayes, 22, who graduated from McKinney High School with Ms. Bosch. “Our schedules kept conflicting, and we grew further and further apart.” </p>
<p>Police say they believe Ms. Bosch hastened her descent into cocaine and drug addiction in February. That’s about the time she began seeing her boyfriend, SMU student Ryan Webb, her mother said. Ms. Bosch appeared withdrawn in recent months, friends say, and spent much of her time watching movies with Mr. Webb. </p>
<p>“I can’t even cope with what’s happening right now,” Mr. Webb, 21, said this week. “My mom’s concerned about my safety and my entire family’s safety.” </p>
<p>‘No snow here’
Cellphone records from May 10 suggest Ms. Bosch may have left her late-afternoon lunch with Mr. McDaniel without drugs. </p>
<p>“No snow here,” she typed in a 3:35 p.m. text message to a friend. </p>
<p>About 6 p.m., she sent a text message to her confidant and ex-boyfriend, a straight-laced romantic fixture from high school. </p>
<p>At a “big black guy’s house with guns,” she wrote. </p>
<p>He messaged her back: “Do you need me to come get you?” </p>
<p>She replied at 6:43 p.m. in what is now believed to be her last known communication, saying: “No, I’ll handle it.” </p>
<p>Two days later, the Bosch family contacted the media, hired private investigator Jerri Dietz to find their daughter and offered a $10,000 reward. </p>
<p>“I’m so upset right now because I’m emotionally attached,” Ms. Dietz said this week. “I’m angry because there are so many drug dealers involved in this case. It isn’t just James – there are at least four of them.” </p>
<p>Ms. Dietz’s report describes a thinly veiled drug culture in the community outside SMU that she says preys on students. Two dealers specialize in Xanax, she wrote, another cocaine dealer is favored by a fraternity because he delivers, and a cab driver-dealer circles the neighborhood for customers. </p>
<p>Police say it appears Ms. Bosch had been running with a dangerous crowd for at least the last two months. </p>
<p>“The people in that life [drugs] are professional predators,” said Texas Ranger Capt. Richard Sweaney, who is supervising the Bosch investigation. “You think you can outthink them or keep them at bay, but that’s how they’ve operated all their life. What happens is that you find out you’re a minor leaguer in a major league. It comes down to vulnerability.” </p>
<p>Money and moxie offer no protection from an underworld of drugs, Capt. Sweaney said. </p>
<p>“Sometimes, we want to put some of these type problems – drugs – in a certain area of town, but it really does cross all boundaries,” said the 32-year law enforcement veteran. “When you get with the wrong folks and you get hooked on something, you get put into situations where you are more vulnerable to harm.” </p>
<p>Kids, he said, often project an illusion – that their drug use is recreational, that they have it under control. </p>
<p>“They don’t want to admit how scared they are, even to themselves,” he said. “A lot of times there is no arrogance – they just think, or hope, they can quit tomorrow. Once kids get to that age where they’re not kids anymore, there’s not much you can do until they come to you and ask for help.” </p>
<p>‘No happy ending’
Days before her daughter disappeared, Lynn sent a long e-mail to her daughter’s therapist explaining concerns about her daughter’s drug use, eating disorder and depression. Lynn would not identify the clinician but said the therapist wrote back suggesting she give her daughter space. </p>
<p>“It is clear from your e-mail you know a great deal about Meaghan’s whereabouts and life,” said Lynn, reading from the e-mail. “Meaghan is an adult and needs to be treated like one with adult responsibilities. Unfortunately, as hard as it is, over-parenting her in any way is going to be a disservice to her in the long run.” </p>
<p>Joe Bosch – a senior executive at Dallas-based homebuilder Centex – said he persuaded his wife to follow the therapist’s advice. </p>
<p>“All Lynn’s instincts were to intervene … and take a very aggressive approach,” he said this week, his voice trailing off. “We’re going to go through this a hundred times, thinking about what we shoulda done and coulda done and woulda done.” </p>
<p>Ms. Bosch was cremated, her ashes stored in a bronze sculpture of a horse in the family room of the Bosches’ 6,000-square-foot McKinney home. </p>
<p>The public portrait of Ms. Bosch is inaccurate and incomplete, her family says. She lived 21 years and 8 months as a luminescent force in their world. </p>
<p>She moved to McKinney in 1995 from Atlanta. She grew up an accomplished equestrian, was a member of her high school diving team and graduated in the top 10 percent of her high school class. </p>
<p>Lynn Bosch said she will remember her little daughter sitting with a box of crayons, sorting through the colors to find a name for her first pony. She chose “Sienna.” </p>
<p>And she and her husband will smile at the memory of Meaghan teaching kids to swim at a local pool, and how she brought bottles of bubbles to make the lessons fun. </p>
<p>They remember prom nights, family trips and conversations over dinner. </p>
<p>“There’s no second chance, and there’s no happy ending here,” said Ms. Bosch’s 20-year-old brother, Ryan, speaking at a memorial service last week in Allen. “And perhaps what’s worse is the indignity of it all. My sister is now known to most people who did not know her as a troubled girl who met a tragic end … this wonderful person I knew from the moment I was born. I can’t stand that, and neither could she.” </p>
<p>Tearful gasps echoed through the overflow crowd. </p>
<p>“And the pathetic excuses for humans who didn’t have the decency to leave her at a hospital, and how they tried to protect themselves by trying to dispose of her,” he said, his voice quavering. “My sister deserves so much better than this.” </p>
<p>SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF DRUG USE
Physical symptoms
• Loss of appetite, increase in appetite, any changes in eating habits, unexplained weight loss or gain
• Slowed or staggering walk; poor physical coordination
• Inability to sleep, awake at unusual times, unusual laziness
• Red, watery eyes; pupils larger or smaller than usual; blank stare
• Cold, sweaty palms; shaking hands
• Puffy face, blushing or paleness
• Smell of substance on breath, body or clothes
• Extreme hyperactivity; excessive talkativeness
• Runny nose; hacking cough
• Needle marks on lower arm, leg or bottom of feet
• Nausea, vomiting or excessive sweating
• Tremors or shakes of hands, feet or head </p>
<p>Behavioral signs
• Change in overall attitude or personality with no other identifiable cause
• Changes in friends; new hangouts; sudden avoidance of old crowd; doesn’t want to talk about new friends; friends are known drug users
• Change in activities or hobbies
• Drop in grades at school or performance at work; skips school or is late for school
• Change in habits at home; loss of interest in family and family activities
• Difficulty in paying attention; forgetfulness
• General lack of motivation, energy and self-esteem; “I don’t care” attitude
• Sudden oversensitivity, temper tantrums or resentfulness
• Moodiness, irritability or nervousness
• Silliness or giddiness
• Paranoia
• Excessive need for privacy; unreachable
• Secretive or suspicious behavior
• Car accidents
• Chronic dishonesty
• Unexplained need for money; stealing money or items
• Change in personal grooming habits
• Possession of drug paraphernalia </p>
<p>SOURCE: American Council of Drug Education"</p>