Undetermined Death of a Teenage Goth, Illinois - 1993

On Tuesday 7 December 1993 I went to one of my closest friend's parents' home after school. He was at a party the night before which he mentioned to me but I was 17 and it was a Monday night (school night) and there would be no way. Additionally he had some new friends on whom I was never keen. His dad and stepmom came out and told another friend (who came with me after school) that Chris had died. I waited in the car in part because I was driving and I figured I would pick him up because he was not driving in part because he did not have a car but also his license was out of date. We planned to go to the local dmv next Wednesday to get that sorted. His parents came to the car told me to park and told me the following: while at the party Chris may have taken drugs, put a bag over his head, tied it around his neck and died from suffocation. It turns out that there was only one person at the party other than Chris that I knew. His name is Lee. I did not like him nor dislike him at the time but I having met him before Chris came back home from being in Indiana for the past 9 months it was no surprise that Chris would want to be friends with the guy (he was in our broader friend group at the time) but I never felt comfortable around him. He seemed too edgy and too into drugs for me to feel at ease. Despite being "goth" I was for all intents and purposes I was a naïve, nerdy, and nervous boy scout of a punk. Many of those qualities I'd say I still posses, haha. Ever since Chris started hanging out with Lee outside the friend group it was clear that Chris was smoking weed a lot and somewhat less ambitious than he was when he first returned though he still had goals that he was determined to achieve. Additionally it seemed that Lee was more an "alpha" friend between the two which for me was so strange because I've never seen Chris as the "passenger" friend, if you get my meaning. I'm not saying he was an alpha or beta male, but in his friendships he was more the leader or second in command to one of the girls in the friend group in question. Again I am using simile and metaphor here but I hope it conveys what I am trying to describe accurately.



This party was in DeKalb, Illinois which was 20 minutes from where we lived. Chris also had a quasi-girlfriend at this time with whom he would stay overnight sometimes but I would not say he was living with her. He was a notorious couch-surfer with friends as long as I knew him, even when he was in high school with me.



Despite DeKalb being the home of Northern Illinois University, it is the university in the center of a corn field and especially in 1993 the home of barbed-wire was not very culturally diverse. Though notably improved in 2020, if a cursory google search hints that the city still has some issues with over zealous white cops *seemingly* disproportionately targeting minorities.



Our friend group and extended friend groups were fairy eccentric. Think goth-chic before it was altered by manson or combined with metal; mixed with vintage mid-century and classic "oddball."



Here is Chris 3 months before he died:



www.dropbox.com/s/q29t1t6y4kpslbq/last.jpg?dl=0



His Bowie gender-bending influenced look may or may not have colored the perception of rural investigators. Again, it was 1993.



More of Chris:



www.dropbox.com/s/16b3y4oadyrihyo/shave02.jpg?dl=0



www.dropbox.com/s/6mslvlztwxmxjxs/spare%20roomwq.jpg?dl=0



www.dropbox.com/s/ert04dc9ua78x6e/chris2.jpg?dl=0



www.dropbox.com/s/4u9xnzi8xoj1tss/fallen.jpg?dl=0



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