prison. outside court, the burkes leave for the last time. their sentence is for life. it s never going to be done. christian was our child. he s our flesh and blood. he s someone that was so important to us. we would have given our lives for him. our job now is just to get the word out there to other people so that no other families have to go through this kind of thing and to honor our son and to honor his memory. only kids and young adults sitting in here today please tell them the story. since their son christian s death, the burkes have become activists, getting out the word on the dangers of synthetic drugs. thanks to their efforts, north dakota has put in new legislation banning a number of synthetics and federally, the drug that killed christian and eli is now on the list of banned substances.
we need an ambulance. there s a kid who s not breathing. it s east grand forest, i don t think he s breathing at all. he s dead. i know. can you guys start cpr with him? yeah. it is three days before eli s birthday. he would be 18. yeah. he wanted to go to grand forks to see his cousin and spend time with justin. melissa s son elijia was in grand forks to celebrate an upcoming birthday. he was with his foster brother justin. what were you planning that weekend. not a whole lot. just hang out basically. they would find themselves hanging out and sleeping over at the home of a cousin s boyfriend, neither had known 18-year-old adam budge but he seemed nice. budge said he had a special treat, a bag of chocolate that he had cooked with a white powder he says it extract from
this stuff is not safe because you can order it on the internet. don t be fooled by that of the don t put yourself and your family in the position that these families in grand forks found themselves. talk to your kids that synthetic drugs are dangerous. all drugs are dangerous. this was done for the memorial for eli. his friends signed that. that came. the family of eli stye say they too hope their son s death can be a warning to others about the dangers of synthetic drugs. our lives will never be the same. i don t know if you can really put something like that into words what your life is like after you lose a kid. it s a horrific thing to have to go through for any parent. eli was a good kid. this can happen to any family.
is let as many people know as possible that no matter how hard you try to be safe or no matter how hard or how well you think you have it under control, somebody is going to get hurt or even die. these chemicals are so dangerous that all it takes is for someone to just have some of it and not know what they have. yet you did think that. you thought you were smart enough to handle it and smart th smart enough to think that your customers knew what the hell they were doing. that s right. he s the 15th person so far to be prosecuted under the north dakota federal drug case now called operation stolen youth. it began with the deaths of christian and eli stye. andrew who bought the drugs online from carlton, adam who
sky and dropping back down. you were really tripping? yeah. i was like this is getting really intense. downstairs, eli was beginning to convulse. adam was already down there with eli. he had told me that eli was going into a bad trip i was like do we need to call 911. he said no. it s just mushrooms he s going to be fine. he s just going into a bad trip. he started to i guess foam at the mouth. yelling. ive guei guess he was hitting h head convulsing uncontrollably. finally the police were called. i started to assist with cpr. with the affects of the drugs, i wasn t able to do it. his face started to contort because of the drugs and it really messed me up. i told him i was going to wait outside for 911 to direct him in because i couldn t see him like that. i was he was dead. he was dead.