Tulsa Woman Arrested For Death Of Teen Injected With Meth

NewsOn6.com & Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA -- A 30-year-old Tulsa woman is the Payne County jail on a charge of first degree murder.

Heather Gaddis was arrested by a deputy U.S. Marshal Tuesday afternoon at a Tulsa motel.  Authorities say she is connected to the death of Linda Tucker, 15, on June 26, 2010.

Reports say Linda, her brother, her mom, 33-year-old Doris Rigsby and the mom's boyfriend, 30-year-old Jeffrrey Phillips, were all meth users. Her brother was even wearing an ankle monitor from a previous arrest.

They went to a family reunion at Lake Carl Blackwell near Stillwater and shot up meth. Linda wanted to be injected in the neck and was.

Linda's brother says he bought $750 worth of meth from Heather Gaddis before the family reunion. He says he, Linda, Rigsby and Phillips went to the lake and injected meth several times.

Then he says he and Linda helped each other inject meth into their necks and that's where things went wrong.

Reports say she "began acting funny", "shaking", "saying she was cold,""talking like a child, not making any sense" and saying she couldn't breathe.

He says his mother and her boyfriend told him not to worry, they "had seen this a hundred times" and she "needed to ride it out."

He says they put Linda in the back of the suburban and mom went to bed and the brother went to charge his ankle monitor.

Reports say later, another of Doris' children told them they thought Linda was dead but again, they said Linda was "over amped" and to let her "sleep it off."

Her brother says he later checked on Linda and she "was purple" but their mother didn't want to call 911 but would take her to Stillwater, but they didn't want to get caught with anything illegal in the truck, so they emptied out backpacks and other gear and reports say 45 minutes later, the mother and her boyfriend finally left the park with Linda.

Once in Stillwater, they pulled over at this gas station to get help, but when police arrived, Linda was already dead.

Earlier this month, the state Medical Examiner's Office said Linda Tucker was injected with almost 10 times the lethal limit of meth.  The ME also ruled Tucker's death as a homicide.

9/1/2010 Related story: Autopsy Report: Teen's Fatal Meth Overdose Ruled Homicide

Tucker's mom, Doris Rigsby, and her boyfriend, Jeffrrey Phillips, were arrested by U.S. Marshals in Enid on Monday. 

9/21/2010 Related story: 3 Arrested in Meth Overdose Death of 15-Year-Old

The report says Linda's brother took pictures of her while her body was contorting and she was struggling to breathe, to show her what she looked like when she was really high, but, was actually taking pictures of her dying.

Rigsby, Phillips and Gaddis are in the Payne County jail.