Police Report Recounts 15-Year-Old's Final Hours

Heather Specyalski, Laurie Latourelle
(HARTFORD COURANT / April 29, 2004)
In this 2004 file photo, Heather Specyalski, left, laughs with her friend Laurie Latourelle after a jury found Specyalski not guilty of felony charges in connection with the death of her boyfriend Neil Esposito in a 1999 crash.

By STEVEN GOODE | The Hartford Courant
December 23, 2008

Fifteen-year-old Brandon Specyalski spent the last hours of his life at home in Ashford drinking beer, downing shots of vodka and snorting ground-up morphine tablets he had taken from his mother, according to friends interviewed by police.

Though his death on Aug. 24 was labeled an accidental overdose by the state medical examiner, a state police investigation into the circumstances leading up to it resulted in his mother, Heather Specyalski, 38, being charged with three counts of risk of injury to a minor.

Heather Specyalski made headlines in 2004, when she was found not guilty of manslaughter in the 1999 death of her boyfriend, prominent Connecticut businessman Neil Esposito, who died in a car wreck in Cromwell. Specyalski, the only other person in the vehicle, was badly injured. Investigators initially concluded that Esposito had been behind the wheel, but later said that Specyalski had been driving. The jury, however, didn't believe it.

The charges Specyalski now faces grew out of the investigation into what authorities say happened in her presence, at her home on Seckar Road in Ashford, in the hours that preceded her son's death.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Specyalski's son and two of his friends, Christopher Whitehouse, 16, and Travis Neborsky, 14, were at her house in the hours before Brandon's death.

Whitehouse, who told police that he had been friends with Brandon since grade school, said they were hanging out at the Specyalski home the night of Aug. 23. Around 8 p.m., Brandon took some beers from the refrigerator and they went into the backyard. Whitehouse said Heather Specyalski was in her room sleeping and apparently didn't mind her son's drinking because she had purchased beer for him.

Between 11 p.m. and midnight, Whitehouse told police, the two went inside. Whitehouse said he wasn't feeling well and went into Heather Specyalski's bedroom and got into bed with her.

Whitehouse told police he believed that was when Brandon took his mother's car to pick up Neborsky, who lived a few miles away.

Neborsky told police that Brandon picked him up at his house about 1 a.m. and they drove back to Specyalski's house. They drank beer at a campfire in the backyard before going into the house and drinking shots of vodka, Neborsky told investigators.

At some point, Neborsky said, Brandon went into his mother's room and came back with her purse, which contained a bottle of prescription morphine. Neborsky said Brandon swallowed one of the 100-milligram pills and then crushed three more into two lines of powder, which he snorted before drinking six more beers.

About 2:30 a.m., Neborsky said, he told Brandon that he wanted to go home, but that he wanted Brandon's mother to drive. Brandon, according to the affidavit, had a confrontation with his mother, who nonetheless drove Neborsky home. Brandon got into the back seat for the ride.

Specyalski told investigators that she had stopped her son from taking her purse and medication that night and that she left Brandon sleeping in the back of the car when she returned home from dropping off Neborsky because she didn't want to fight with him. She said she and Whitehouse took turns checking on him, and the last time she did his skin was blue and he wasn't breathing.

Whitehouse told investigators that Specyalski got a pillow and a blanket for Brandon and that he checked on him a few times before going to bed about 5 a.m. Whitehouse said that when he woke up between 9:30 and 10 a.m., Specyalski was also lying in bed awake. He told police that when he asked if she had checked on Brandon, she said "no."

Whitehouse said he went to check on Brandon, found him unresponsive and told Specyalski, who shook Brandon and told Whitehouse to call 911, but he had no cellphone service.

When Specyalski returned to the kitchen, Whitehouse said, she asked "what are we going to do?" before looking at the counter and instructing him to "get rid of the beer, go throw it in the woods."

Whitehouse said he did, and Specyalski then called 911.

Brian Specyalski, Brandon's father, told investigators that his son had smoked marijuana and had stolen some prescription drugs from his grandmother (Brian'smother) in the past. He said he had sought treatment for Brandon and also had warned Heather Specyalski to lock up her medication and to keep alcohol away from him.

Specyalski is due back in Superior Court in Danielson on Jan. 16. Her attorney, Jeremiah Donovan, said his client will plead not guilty to the charges.

"Every parent of a teenage kid can sympathize with a mom who's been charged with risk of injury because she hasn't done a good enough job of hiding prescription medicine from her kids," Donovan said.

Bruce Latourelle, a friend of Heather Specyalski for about 10 years and a former neighbor, on Monday described her as a caring mother who dreamed of living in a new home with her son after her divorce from his father. Latourelle said Heather Specyalski built a home for herself and her son after a civil lawsuit in the Esposito case was settled.

"To call her a bad mother is like calling the pope a devil-worshiping Satan lover," Latourelle, 39, said. "That's how absurd it is to me. I've only seen her be a great mother — not a good mother — a great mother."

Latourelle said Specyalski's son stole prescription drugs from her purse, and he said she would never buy alcohol for Brandon. "That's insane," Latourelle said. "Heather doesn't even drink alcohol, so why would she buy it for her son?"

Latourelle said Specyalski was sleeping when her son overdosed, and he questioned the police investigation, saying teens interviewed by authorities have changed their stories over time. "It makes me wonder if the state police have it in for Heather," Latourelle said. "How much can one person take?"

Courant Staff Writer Alaine Griffin contributed to this story.

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