Aiexpress – According to police, an Oregon father drugged his daughter’s young friends with sedative-laced smoothies before creeping over them as they fell asleep.
One of the three 12-year-old girls texted her mother at 1:45 a.m., pleading for help as she lost consciousness and pleaded to be rescued from her house in Lake Oswego, just south of Portland.
“Please pick me up and say I have a family emergency, Mom.” I do not feel safe. I may not respond, but please come get me (sobbing emoji). Please. Please pick up. Please. Police say she scribbled, “PLEASE!!”
Michael Meyden, 57, surrendered to the Clackamas County Jail on Wednesday after a grand jury indicted him on various felonies and misdemeanors in connection with the August 26, 2023, sleepover, according to Lake Oswego police.
The police did not speculate on the motivation.
According to a probable cause document that Oregon Live obtained, Meyden laced mango smoothies with benzodiazepine, a depressant that inhibits the nervous system, and served them to his daughter’s friends.
During the sleepover, the girls watched movies and “did facials” before Meyden made the smoothies and “insisted they drink them,” the girls told police.
According to the affidavit, the beverages contained “tiny white chunks throughout and sprinkled on top,” and Meyden continued to urge the girls to drink them, even after one claimed she didn’t like hers.
According to the affidavit, Meyden then made many trips down to the basement where the children were sleeping, once placing his finger up one of the girls’ noses to see if she was asleep.
He also moved one girl’s arm and body across the bed. According to the affidavit, the girl “remained awake in fear that Mr. Meyden was going to do something” to her companion.
Another girl reported feeling “woozy, hot, and clumsy” after drinking the smoothie and then blacking out, going into a “‘thick, deep sleep’ that she had never experienced before,” according to the affidavit.
Meyden returned and stood near where the girls were sleeping for what appeared to be an extended period of time, as if checking to see if they were asleep, the girls told police.
After one of the girls was rescued from the sleepover, her parents contacted the other girls’ families to arrange for their transportation home.
When the parents arrived about 3 a.m., Meyden refused to allow the girls to go home, according to officials.
Police were rushed to the Randall Children’s Hospital emergency room, where the kids tested positive for an unknown prescription substance.
Nine to twelve hours after the girls allegedly took drugs, police interviewed them around noon the following day.
The officer noticed that the girl “walked slowly and used the assistance of her mother for balance; her eyelids were heavy, and she spoke slowly.”
According to court records, Meyden and his wife divorced late last year, but they still owned a home near Lake Oswego at the time of the sleepover.
Meyden’s attorney, Mark Cogan, stated that he had not seen any evidence in the case.
“Mr. Meyden is presumed innocent, and we hope that people will reserve judgment until all of the facts and circumstances are known,” Cogan went on to say.
Among the charges against Meyden are making someone take a controlled substance and putting a controlled substance on someone else’s body.
He pleaded not guilty at his hearing Wednesday in Clackamas County Circuit Court, and his bail was set at $50,000.
