​Ruth Rheault speaks openly of nephew’s death

Ruth Rheault speaks openly of nephew’s death

By John Strand & Tom Bixby

Zachary Spieker died Feb. 22 in East Grand Forks due to a heroin overdose. A 2008 graduate of Moorhead High, he excelled academically and had been named to the National Honor Roll Society, as well as the National Who’s Who of high school students. He then attended Concordia College.

Zach’s aunt, Ruth Rheault of Rollag, spoke candidly with HPR about the ravages of addiction, difficulties individuals and families face getting help, and the challenges loved ones experience when such a tragedy unfolds.

Ironically, shortly after the interview, Ruth came upon a young man humped over his steering wheel in the parking lot of a big box store in Moorhead – sweating and with a needle in his arm. She went inside to solicit assistance and upon her return, the man became alert and quickly drove away from the scene.

It’s everywhere, she said prophetically.

HPR: As an affected family member who recently lost someone they love to a heroin overdose, what is the message you'd like to share with others who may have somebody they know and love or who are, themselves, at risk?

Ruth Rheault: We knew Zach was having problems with drug addiction. He suffered from chronic pain due to a terrible break he had in his ankle -- his journey the last two years. What really pissed me off was that Zach could not get help from the medical community. They wrote him off as a drug seeker. They closed everything off to him. He didn't have any other way to go. With Zach, he had long hair and this hippie vibe. He’d go in there and they'd take one look at him and, "Nope, you're out of here. We're not helping you." They wouldn't listen to his story. We didn't know where to go to help him. We just didn't know what to do.

HPR: Do you have a sense those answers of where to go are readily available, or that people know where to go to get help?

Ruth: I think they're nonexistent. They were for us. That is not a world that we were familiar with. And the medical field, "Well, if you're in that much pain, blah, blah, blah, go here." They (then) sent him to a pain clinic and the pain clinic looked at him and said, "Nope, you're a drug seeker. We can't help you." It was so frustrating. It's like, “How can you judge just by looking at (someone) by the way they dress or what job they have?

It was at one of the festivals, one of the people there said, "Well, if you are suffering with pain, I've got something for you so you'll never have trouble with pain." And then that guy shot him up with the heroin and that was it. He was hooked.

HPR: Was Zach's heroin laced with fentanyl?

RR: They're looking in Zach's situation, at (whether) he was murdered by drug dealers because Zach owed a lot of money. You never knew if Zach was telling the truth or not. He was great at lying and manipulating to get what he wanted. The story of late was that the drug dealers were at his house for three days and they wouldn't let him leave. And then, the day that he was driving to Fargo with this known drug dealer -- Zach said he was not willing to be driving with this guy, who even had a concealed weapon on him. So Zach saw a highway patrol, he swerved on purpose and then they got pulled over and both were arrested. He called for bail and (his family) said, "We're not bailing you out this time and what not," hoping he'd just stay in jail and maybe be able to go back into treatment.

Well, he was bailed out and come to find out he was bailed out by drug dealers for $600, and they already knew he didn't have any money to pay them. That's what his whole thing was, he owed them a lot of money and he couldn't pay. So he was bailed out on a Saturday, stayed at my sister's on Saturday night, and they brought him back home on Sunday, and he was dead later that night.

The police said that he was at that point where he probably -- where they (the drug dealers) labeled him as a "stain" in the drug world and he had to be gotten rid of because at that point, with what he owed, he could have turned and become a narc, and they were tired of not getting paid from him. They said by the position of the body -- and he was beat up -- and there was a lot of heroin in his apartment and he didn't have the money for it. They just said that it was not his doing.

HPR: To your knowledge, are law enforcement actively pursuing this case or do you know the status of it at all?

RR: They said they were going to pursue it, (yet we haven’t) heard any more lately. I don't know if they are going to keep looking into it. They were given the information that the guy that he was arrested with Zach two days before that was a drug dealer, according to Zach, and to look it up, and he's the one who had the concealed weapon and a few drugs on him.

HPR: You, more than most, know this is happening to families across the region and country. What is it that you’d like to share with families and people going through this who might feel stigmatized or might feel like they don't even know where to start?

RR: … like they feel like they're a bad parent. I tried to tell my sister that these are choices that these kids are making. I said that Zach had a great upbringing. They were middle class. They didn't want for anything. And my sister felt such a failure and she felt judged. That is one thing that I want for the other parents to know, that maybe there should be -- and I don't know if there (are) -- groups out there of other parents who've gone through it, that they can go there for support and understanding. But our community has to not judge the parents. But judge these drug dealers. These are the ones that are putting this crap out there.

It (the addiction) is a really hard fight to get off of. I don't know what can be done, but i just want the community not to be so judgmental and to reach out to these people that are hurting because it's their babies. These parents that lose -- they're losing their babies and they've lost them before they died. They start to lose them the minute they take that first drug.

And what I hope and pray, too, is that, as a parent, try not to be in denial. If you start seeing signs of them lying, making up stories, acting funny, not to ignore those signs and just think they'll just go away. People are in denial because they are afraid of the judgment.

HPR: In the sense of the bigger picture of things, for lawmakers and for the states and the governments to address this and to find solutions, do you have any sense of what needs to be done?

RR: I think just more education for the community. That would be huge. Because if you're a person who grows up without being subjected to the drug world, you have no clue what this drug will do. We really need to get it out there so people know where to go so they can get help, and not being labeled or being arrested. I think, with Zach, his addiction got so bad because he feared going to prison. I know it's against the law to do drugs but these are kids, I mean really they're just getting to their adult lives. People make mistakes and make wrong decisions. There has to be more help, more education, and less judgment. People, I pray, will see less judgment.

HPR: Is there anything else you need to share that we've not asked?

RR: I just want people to know that Zach was an amazing kid. He struggled as a young adult to fit in somewhere, and he was such a kind of free spirit, and he really didn't know where to fit in, and when he found, you know, going to festivals and being able just to dance and sing and without judgment, and be himself. He was an amazing person. And I know that these kids that are on these drugs, I know Zach felt really bad about what he was doing but he just didn't know what else to do (to get help)

HPR: And it's everywhere. And there are so many impacted...

RR: I really want Zach's death not to be just another number. I want it to count for something so that other families out there know there will be help coming. These parents shouldn't be alone during the drug phase, and if they have to go through the horrible experience of losing their child, they shouldn't be alone, or judged.