Woman loses parents two days apart to suspected overdoses

• Rebecca Price said she is filled with grief, but relieved her parents are no longer fighting demons
• "The two deaths are being investigated for suspected drug overdoses," a coroner's investigator said

MANSFIELD - Rebecca Price grew up with parents who abused drugs. Now she is mourning their deaths from suspected overdoses, just two days apart.

Price, the daughter of Robert and Johnnie Criss, said she last talked to her parents on July 16. After being unable to reach them by cellphone, she called her parents' landlord July 20, and asked her to check on her parents, who lived in separate apartments at 55 Wood St.

The landlord went to check on the couple and then called 911 to report a tenant, Johnnie, 52, was dead. The caller said  Robert, 56, was in the same apartment, still alive. Robert died two days later at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital.

Brother's overdose death drives Traci Willis

"The two deaths are being investigated for suspected drug overdoses,"  Richland County coroner's investigator Bob Ball said this week.

Price said she hopes to save lives by sharing her parents' story of drug abuse.

"Even one life, if it saves one life," she said. "I want more people to be aware. I would never want anyone to go through this with one parent, let alone two."

Growing up, Price, 30, said she was in and out of foster homes with relatives when her parents were using drugs.

Her dad was incarcerated for a time at Mansfield Correctional Institution. He worked at Goodyear. Her mother cleaned houses. Both were receiving disability benefits, their daughter said, noting her dad was in a terrible car crash in Akron and had suffered from spinal cord cancer. Her mother had back and knee surgeries, and both had heart problems.

Price remains estranged from her two older brothers, who when old enough, she said, decided they didn't want to live in the house with the drug use and were taken in by their mother's relatives. Price also is estranged from her mother's relatives, who she says blamed her father for her mother's drug use.

Price said she is grieving with her husband, Mark, and trying to stay strong for her own children.

She said she loved her parents dearly and worked to have relationships with them. She asked them to quit using drugs and called them every day to make sure they were OK.

"Every birthday, every Christmas, every holiday they were seeing our kids," she said.  "When they weren't using they came to see their grandkids."

She said it did her her parents good to see the grandkids.

"They needed to see the grandbabies and I always hoped them seeing the kids would send them a picture, 'I need to stop. I really need help. I want to see my grandbabies grow up,'" Price said.

She had not yet told her three young children last week that "papa" and "maw maw" died.

"They were legally divorced, but were still together," Price said from her home in Madison Township earlier this week.

"They've been users probably over 25 years," said Price's husband, Mark. "Not every day, not every week, sometimes not even during a month or six months. But they couldn't put it down. It's got such a hold on people."

Her mother used heroin. Her dad had heroin needle tracks on his arms at the time of his death, but she said they appeared to be old. Pills were found on the apartment floor. Both had abused pain pills, she said.

Price said she and her husband were constantly trying to help her parents, allowing them to live at their house for awhile.

"The abuse of pills kicked in and they had to get their own place," said Mark Price, noting they couldn't have people using around the kids.

Price is unable to sleep, constantly finding herself roaming the house.

"What makes it hard on me is I know the person she got it from and where they live,"  Price said of the drug dealer she hopes will be brought to justice.

Mark Price said he has a theory about what happened, and believes Robert took his own life.

"Johnnie got her some heroin and probably shot it up with this woman. She was over at Rob's, Johnnie was, and Rob was probably passed out because he abused his pain pills, too.

"I'm thinking he woke up and found Johnnie laying on the floor dead. When the EMS got to Rob he had his hands in his hair. … When we went in there, there was pills on the floor. When he found her, I believe he ate a bunch of pills and that's why he didn't respond to the Narcan," he said.

Price said she believes her father didn't want to live without her mother, and didn't want to face her and tell her the news of her mother's death.

"When we got to the hospital we asked if they could tell us if he had heroin in his system?  She said he has cocaine in his system, Benzos (muscle relaxers) and opiates. He never regained consciousness," Mark Price said. "They called us in at 4 o'clock in the morning, and he died at 5."

The Prices have been to her parents' apartments and found a note written by her mother, a wish list of sorts in a little canister.

It focused on her and her children being healthy, Price said. Johnnie's wishlist also asked for her children to forgive her and noted she wanted to be closer to her own mother, (Rebecca's grandmother) who is still alive, and an aunt.

Price said she is filled with grief, but is relieved her parents are no longer fighting demons, are safe and not in pain.

lwhitmir@nncogannett.com

419-521-7223

Twitter: @LWhitmir