Donald Hogue’s 15-month-old son was killed in a methamphetamine lab fire on November 10th, 2011.
Hogue wasn’t there when it happened, the child's mother, Hogue's ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Jennings, had custody of the baby. She and her boyfriend, Jacob Bell, have been charged with manufacturing a controlled dangerous substance, and two counts each of child neglect for allegedly manufacturing meth in the presence of two children, the baby and a five-year-old.
Everyone but the baby, Ayden Jennings, survived the fire.
Hogue flew into Tulsa Saturday night for his son’s funeral on Monday. On Sunday, he went to the house Jennings and Bell were living in when the fire broke out, in the 1400 block of West Admiral Blvd.
He was able to retrieve some of the burnt pictures, clothes, and toys that were his son’s. He said he will never let another meth lab fire kill a child. He has been doing a lot of research over the last ten days with Tulsa methamphetamine investigators. He discovered that if the Oklahoma state legislature had passed HB 1235, then his son might be alive today.
The house bill would have required a prescription for all pseudoephedrine medication. Pseudoephedrine is a main ingredient in methamphetamines. Meth cooks use "smurfs", people who go into drug stores to buy over-the-counter pseudoephedrine and bring it back to the cooks. The cooks pay their “smurfs” in cash to buy it for them. If a prescription was required to purchase pseudoephedrine, then it would make getting it much more difficult and would reportedly cut down on meth labs across the state. Hogue can’t believe lawmakers would not pass the bill. He said this simple legislation could have saved his son's life.
“I was so devastated,” cried Hogue. “I couldn't breathe. I spent two days crying. He was my only son. If they would have just done their jobs in the first place, pass this law, HB1235 then my son would still be alive.”
He is determined to fight for the bill to pass at the next legislative session in February. “If you can’t get a prescription, then you aren’t going to be able to make it,” says Hogue. “No drug addict is going to want to go to the doctor because the doctor is going to be like, ‘you got a problem and I am not going to help you.’”
Oklahoma Senator Kim David plans to re-introduce the bill at the next session. “I do not want baby Ayden to have died and there to be no repercussions for him,” says Senator David.
She's confident that if the public gets involved, this bill will pass and lives will be saved. “I certainly hope he is the last child to die because of this horrific problem in our state,” says David. “There is always the possibility that if we had passed that bill, we could have saved that child's life.”
That's something she and the rest of the legislature will have to live with.
“I am just not going to give up on it,” says David. She also says the reason it never got through the house at the last session was because there wasn’t enough public support. That is something Hogue plans to change by February. He has invited the legislature to attend his son's funeral. He wants them to see what happens when, in his words, “They don’t do their jobs.”
“They are not stepping up,” says Hogue. “If they can't step up, then they need to step down.”
