Victim Stories

The Naulls Family

Ronald Naulls already had two successful careers when he established the Healing Nations Collective in Corona in 2006 to save fellow patients the hours-long drive to Los Angeles for medicine. Although it was widely considered a model medical marijuana dispensary, DEA agents invaded the Naulls family's home and businesses on July 17, 2007. They arrested Ronald and turned his three young daughters over to county child protective services, which charged him and his wife with child endangerment.

Alberta Spruill

On May 16, 2003, 57-year-old Alberta Spruill died of a heart attack shortly after police mistakenly raided her Harlem, New York, apartment for drugs. The office of the city medical examiner attributed her death to "the stress and the fear that she experienced" during the raid.

Bryan Epis

Chronic pain sufferer Bryan Epis was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for growing medical marijuana for himself and others. He served more than two years of his sentence before being released while the Supreme Court considered Gonzales v. Raich. In 2010, he was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Peter McWilliams

Writer, poet and publisher Peter McWilliams used medical marijuana to relieve the pain he suffered from cancer and AIDS. He also took advantage of his prominence as a writer and public figure to advocate in favor of medical marijuana laws. As a result, he was investigated, raided, arrested, and put on trial by the federal government. In 2000, while out on bond and unable to use marijuana to ease his nausea, he began vomiting, choked on his vomit, and died.

Jeffre and Alice Sanderson

Jeffre Sanderson and his wife, Alice Wiegand, owned a garden that supplied medical marijuana to ten patients under California state law. But because the federal government did not recognize California’s Compassionate Use Act, the couple was arrested in 2006 and had their children turned over to social services.

Roni and Charity Bowers

On April 20, 2001, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency ordered the Peruvian Air Force to shoot down a plane suspected of smuggling drugs out of Peru. The plane was carrying not drugs but American religious missionaries Jim and Roni Bowers; Roni and seven-month-old daughter Charity died in the shooting.

Kathryn Johnston

Members of a Georgia narcotics investigation team shot and killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a drug raid in her Atlanta home November 21, 2006.

Robin Prosser

Robin Prosser, of Missoula, Montana, used medical marijuana to treat an immunosuppressive disorder similar to lupus. Despite spending years in a successful fight to help establish a medical marijuana law in her state, federal authorities continued interfering with her access to medicine. On Oct. 18, 2007, after spending months in excruciating pain and unable to acquire the type and quality of medical marijuana she needed, Prosser took her own life.

Clayton Helriggle

On September 27, 2002, armed police officers raided a rural farmhouse in West Alexandria, Ohio, based on a tip from a convicted felon that there were drugs in the house. Nearly 30 officers, clad in body armor and riot shields, stormed the house with a battering ram and detonated stun grenades to disorient the occupants of the house. Awoken from his nap by the noise, 23-year-old Clayton Helriggle walked downstairs — allegedly with a gun — and was promptly shot in the chest by police. Two minutes later, he was dead in the arms of a roommate.

Rhiannon Kephart

In January 2005, 18-year-old Rhiannon Kephart received second- and third-degree burns to her chest and stomach when police set off a stun grenade during a drug raid. Kephart was not a target of the investigation.