The teenage girl who was the target of an attempted “rescue” from a Brooklyn drug den last year — by a trio of vigilantes in a jacked-up pickup truck that was armed to the teeth — died this week from an overdose, according to a report.
Jenea Patterson, 18, was found dead Wednesday after using drugs with several friends in her rural hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, according to The Citizens’ Voice.
Her dad, James Patterson, told the local newspaper that she had been struggling with addiction for quite some time, and that he had been trying to get her to seek treatment.
“What I want to discuss is there is too much dope in the Valley,” Patterson added. “If we don’t do anything, more are going to die.”“This was a baby. She was 18. But she’s a baby,” he said, explaining that drugs were a big problem in their area.
The Luzerne County Coroner’s Office told the Citizens’ Voice that they were investigating Jenea’s death, and hadn’t yet determined the cause pending an investigation.
John Cramsey, of nearby Zionsville, Pa., was arrested last June on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel — along with pals Dean Smith, 53, and Kimberly Arendt, 29 — as they attempted to bring Jenea back from a drug den in Brooklyn.
The heavily-armed trio had been riding in Cramsey’s lifted, neon green and black truck — which was adorned with images of the constitution and giant pro-gun decals that read, “We the People” and “God, Guns, Guts…Make America Free.”
They were later indicted on seven counts of weapons charges, including possession of high-capacity magazines and transport of an assault firearm, after officers found a trove of weapons inside the vehicle.
Among them was an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and four additional semiautomatic handguns.
Cramsey — a known anti-drug crusader in Pennsylvania — had been given Jenea’s location and instructed to “rescue” her from an apartment in Brooklyn after she awoke to find her friend, Sierra Schmitt, 20, also of Wilkes-Barre, dead of a heroin overdose.
While the teen originally claimed to have been kidnapped, she later admitted that she was at the residence by choice and didn’t need to be rescued.
“We were standing in my kitchen. I grabbed her, hugged her and kissed her. I said, ‘Baby girl you can’t disobey the warning signs or you’ll end up like your girlfriend,'” Jenea’s dad told the Citizens’ Voice, describing a conversation the two had after she returned home from New York.
“I told her, ‘Jenea, you have to get out of the game.’”
Cramsey, Smith and Arendt are currently awaiting trial, according to The Citizens’ Voice.
They have already spent several months in jail due to the hefty price of their bail.