A California mother is devastated after her two teenage children died within just ten months of each other after falling victim to an ‘invisible killer’.
Tyler Gordon, 18, was found unconscious on his bedroom floor around 9 a.m. on April 23, 2020, after he thought it was Percocet that he bought from Snapchat. Mercury News reports.
However, the drug contained fentanyl and caused the teen to fatally overdose.
His younger sister, Jenna, 16, died less than a year later, on February 24, 2021, after taking counterfeit Xanax, which investigators later determined was pure fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine.
‘This should never have happened,’ their still-grieving mother, Tammy Lyon-Gordon, told KTL. “It still doesn’t seem real to me.”
Tyler Gordon, 18, and Jenna Gordon, 16, died within just 10 months of each other after unknowingly ingesting fentanyl
She went on to call the powerful drug an “invisible killer” and noted that none of her children had any “idea they were taking fentanyl.”
“To have them die at home, a place where they felt safe, haunts me every day.”
Shortly before his untimely death, Tyler began working at the same company as his mother. In the short time he worked there, Lyon-Gordon said, management had already thought about promoting him.
But Tyler also planned to go to the Mt. Saint Jacinto College and then transfer to Cal State Fullerton, where his girlfriend attended, to study music production.
It seemed like a big turnaround for the teen, who had previously undergone outpatient treatment and group therapy for opioid addiction.
He detoxed in September 2019 and Lyon-Gordon told the Mercury News she believes her son remained sober from then until his death.
‘He was busy. He was working,” she said. “So for Tyler, I honestly think he was in such a good place that he was like, ‘Hey, it’s not going to hurt me.’
“I didn’t see the signs.”
Tammy Lyon-Gordon, their grieving mother, says she is still haunted by their deaths
She said Tyler had recently gotten a job and was planning to study music production when he died on April 23, 2020.
Less than a year later, Jenna was in her bedroom with her boyfriend, Raymond Gene Tyrrell II, when prosecutors say he and Jenna shared one of six counterfeit Percocet pills he obtained, crushing it and snorting it in her bedroom.
The two were found unconscious in her bedroom just before 7pm on February 24, 2021 and were rushed to a local hospital.
Raymond Gene Tyrrell II was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Jenna’s death over the summer
Tyrrell was resuscitated and survived, but Jenna was pronounced dead about an hour later.
He was then charged with a single murder on March 1 of that year, after the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office vowed to crack down on those supplying fentanyl.
A jury ultimately convicted Tyrrell last summer on the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, and he was sentenced to three years in prison on July 31. reports the San Bernardino Sun.
Lyon-Gordon said in the aftermath that she was disappointed in the jury’s decision.
“To say I am devastated by the jury’s verdict is an understatement,” the mother said in her victim impact statement at Tyrrell’s sentencing hearing.
“The jury’s decision yesterday brought me to my knees because I feel like I have lost my daughter again,” she said, recounting how Jenna aspired to go to college in Montana and become an equine veterinarian.
The two were in Jenna’s bedroom on February 24, 2021, when they snorted counterfeit Percocet pills that Tyrrell had obtained — which were actually pure fentanyl.
Jenna had dreamed of going to college in Montana and becoming an equine veterinarian
“On February 24, 2021, my entire world changed for the second time: I lost my child at the hands of someone else,” Lyon-Gordon said.
“While the paramedics were at my house trying to save my daughter, I was on my knees begging God to let me switch places with Jenna, to take me instead.
“I’ve lost 35 pounds since Jenna’s life was taken,” she continued. ‘I had already lost my 18-year-old son.
“I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t breathe because of my constant anxiety. I have been battling depression for over three years, I am constantly in flight or fight mode.
“I don’t have dreams anymore when I sleep,” Lyon-Gordon added. ‘I feel like a shell of the person I used to be.
“I had a purpose in life and that was to be her mother,” she said. ‘[Tyrrell] my purpose in life stolen.”
Lyon-Gordon said the loss of her children has left her with anxiety and depression
The grieving mother went on to say she believes Tyrrell is a “real danger to our community and society.”
“He knew my son died from a fake Percocet, he knew others who died from it too. He himself almost died from the effects of fake pills, but he still gave it to her, aware of the dangers.’
But in his own statement, read out by his lawyer Charles Kenyon, Tyrrell said he was “deeply sorry” for his actions and any role he played in Kenna’s death.
“I truly cared about Jenna and would never have done anything to hurt her,” the attorney read. ‘I am sorry for the pain I caused her family and friends.
“I will undergo drug treatment because I know I will be fighting this for the rest of my life,” he vowed. “If I can save someone else from drugs, I promise I will do it too.
“I am sorry for my actions, and I will have to live with this shameful burden of regret for the rest of my life.”
Deputy Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Anthony Chrysantis warned that fentanyl is still in the community despite the agency’s efforts to get it off the streets
Meanwhile, California officials are working to reduce opioid overdoses.
The country currently has one of the highest rates of fatal overdoses involving fentanyl, with most shipments smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
“This drug that comes from the cartels is widely available, and you have to be careful because if you get your hands on the wrong stuff, you could die,” warned Anthony Chrysantis, deputy special agent in charge of the DEA.
He said seizures of fentanyl – both in powder and pill form – are at record levels.
In 2023, federal agents seized more than 29,000 pounds of the illegal drug — nearly doubling the amount seized in the previous two years.
In Los Angeles County, California, meanwhile, fentanyl overdoses and poisonings have increased 1,652 percent — from 109 deaths in 2016 to 1,910 deaths in 2022, according to the Department of Health.
Still, there are some good signs, as the rate of increase slowed in 2023 with a smaller three percent increase to 1,970 deaths, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reports that deaths from fentanyl overdoses and poisoning are down 30 percent.
“Since 2023, we have recovered more than 3 million fentanyl pills,” said Lt. Bobby Dean, who oversees the Sheriff’s Department’s Overdose Response Task Force. “Over 150 pounds of fentanyl powder, that’s enough fentanyl to kill the entire state of California.”
He noted that there are currently more than 27 fentanyl cases being prosecuted and that “all of these individuals are facing a mandatory minimum term of 20 years.”
Chrysantis also said the DEA is “getting everything we can off the streets in an effort to make them safer.” But there are endless numbers of these synthetic opioids.
“As long as there is money to be made, they will be out there,” he warned.
As drugs continue to flood the streets, Lyon-Gordon is calling on other parents to be careful.
“I live with the worst pain possible,” she told KTLA.
“Talk to your children about the dangers,” she urged. “Don’t lose them to this medicine.”