Trial witnesses retrace IU student Avery McMillan's steps before she died
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the name of one of the witnesses.
Daniel Fierst awoke to loud banging on his front door around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 17 last year. He found a young woman on the porch who asked him, "Where's Lauren?"
It was 20-year-old Avery McMillan. He described her as upset, confused and intoxicated, and clearly at the wrong residence. "She was surprised to see an older man not wearing a shirt answer the door," he said.
Fierst went to get his wife to talk with the woman, but by the time they returned, she was gone.
A front porch camera shows the Indiana University student walking down some steps and disappearing into the dark about 2:37 a.m.
"It seemed like she needed immediate assistance," Fierst said from the witness stand Wednesday. "She seemed distraught, asking where Lauren and is and I said, 'There's no Lauren here.' She asked three or four times."
Eight hours later, Avery McMillan had overdosed
Eight hours later, McMillan was dead from an overdose of fentanyl and fluorofentanyl, powerful opioid-based drugs attributed to a surge in overdose deaths.
It's unclear when, how and from whom McMillan obtained or used the drugs that killed her.
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Eric Montgomery is on trial this week, charged with rape, providing alcohol contributing to a death and attempted obstruction of justice in connection with McMillan.
The 34-year-old Bloomington man told police he met McMillan downtown and that they drank, smoked marijuana and had sex before going to the house on the edge of town where he lived with his mother and stepfather.
But the charges against him allege he took advantage of McMillan's intoxicated state, had sex with her and committed another felony by supplying her with alcohol.
Police found no drugs at Montgomery's house, and he isn't charged with possessing the opioids or with providing them to McMillan.
McMillan's family members and friends cried as they watched her, wearing green camo pants and a white T-shirt, on the camera video from Fierst's porch that morning on a large screen in Monroe Circuit Court.
Fierst testified he was watching a television newscast after the incident that showed a picture of McMillan. "And I said to my wife, 'I think that is the person we saw at our door.' My wife called the police."
No phone, no ID, no keys
Friends of McMillan's testified about their interactions with her in the hours before she died.
She had lost her cellphone at a house party and was being driven to a friend's house when she became angry and got out of the car at the Marathon gas station on 10th Street, saying she would walk the rest of the way.
She had no phone, and had left behind her purse, ID and the key fob that provides entry to her apartment building.
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Lauren Lombardini got a message from the friend in the car saying McMillan was on her way. Lombardini testified it was just a "two-, three- or four-minute walk" from the gas station to her house. She waited on the porch for McMillan to appear around the corner. It was about 2 a.m.
McMillan apparently had lost her way. Instead of going to Lombardini's house at 714 Cottage Grove, she ended up on the Fiersts' porch. Their address is 214 Cottage Grove, five blocks west.
'She was dead'
Lombardini said she "freaked out" after McMillan didn't arrive .
"I said, 'I'll just wait here, and I'm sure she'll just walk right over,' but she never showed up." Lombardini went out with her roommate in a car to search near the gas station, up and down Cottage Grove Avenue and then around the bars downtown.
"We didn't see her anywhere. I called friends and texted people," she said. "It was 3 or 4 in the morning. No one knew what to do."
By 8:30, there was still no word. The friend who had been with McMillan in the car called police to report her missing.
"Did you find out later what happened?" chief deputy prosecutor Jeff Kehr asked Lombardini.
"Yes. She was dead. That's all I knew."
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A former girlfriend of Montgomery testified she got a call from him before dawn on Aug. 17. She said he told her he was in Bloomington with a girl he had been drinking with and that she was too drunk to be left alone. He didn't know her name, or who to contact on her behalf.
"He didn't want to leave her downtown, said it would be like leaving his mother or sister," Kayla Monroe said. "He didn't know how to get in contact with anybody, her family or friends."
Was alcohol a factor in death?
Forensic pathologist Bamidele Adeagbo testified for several hours, into the evening. His conclusions were difficult to ascertain despite direct questions from the lawyers and also several jurors.
He said there was no THC in McMillan's system, then acknowledged there could have been a small amount below what his lab tests for.
Dr. Adeagbo conducted McMillan's autopsy at Terre Haute Regional Hospital and submitted a report, then created a revised version five months later that made a significant change, testimony at the trial revealed.
The first one, submitted in August, listed McMillan's cause of death as an overdose of fentanyl and fluorofentanyl, drugs 100 times more potent than morphine and lethal in minute quantities.
In February, he submitted a second report that added alcohol as a factor that contributed to her death. He explained to jurors the opioids alone would have suppressed her respiratory system enough to kill her, and alcohol would have enhanced the effects.
Her blood-alcohol content was .167, twice the legal limit for intoxication in Indiana. "Adding ethanol to those two chemicals makes them much more toxic," Adeagbo said.
Contact Herald-Times reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Witnesses retrace Avery McMillan's steps on the night she died
