The story below was posted at the request of Lisa, Lori's sister.

Suspicious Suicide of sister – Solved – IMIPRAMINE. GENERIC FOR TOFRINAL. R.I.P. Lorraine Coppeta (1956-1981)

Lori’s Story
“I always knew my sister’s sudden death that was labeled suicide was
suspicious” Nothing made sense until NOW!

After almost 3 decades of being kept in the dark, I have the answer I searched for my entire life since that tragic morning I found her in her 1977 Buick with our father’s handgun in her lap. I promised her that morning I would not give up until I found t he “truth” about what really happened to her. My sister loved her family and knew we loved her. She would not of taken her life. So why did she?

Summary of my story:

My sister moved home to file for divorce in 1980. I am her younger sister Lisa, and we spent the most time together when she moved back home. I was thrilled to have the time with her. We were very close.

She was a strong, smart woman and was determined to make it on her own. She worked for the county that we lived in and was very well liked. They were shocked as everyone was to hear about her sudden death. So out of character.

The time she lived with us she was fine. Going to work taking one day at a time to rebuild her life. Until Suddenly the last month to weeks she changed.

I listened, and I watched her suddenly turn into someone I did not know. I could not figure it out. Why was she acting like this? Saying these things to me? Finding it funny to scare me?

She started to talk about death and dying, and included me in her ideas on how I could help her end her life. (ways we could try)

Some examples: She would loop a belt around her neck and ask me to pull as hard as I could until she stopped breathing, She would ask me to come in the middle of the night and put a pillow over her face to suffocate her in her sleep, she would lay still in her bed and when she heard me coming she would pretend to be dead when I shook her to wake her up… she would not move until she started to laugh hysterically, and would say “I’m just joking Lisa..I just wanted to see what you would do if I were really dead? and what it would really feel like to be dead? I wouldn’t really do it …I’m too chicken!”

Soon another sudden change came about she started to say things like “HE” is in your closet and going to get you. Will you sleep with me in my room?! Never made sense. She also would go from laughing and joking about something then it turned into anger and agitation and confusion at times.

Something else happened shortly before she took her life. She was very sick with the flu. She lost a lot of weight, she could not eat, drink, or get up out of bed she was very pale and fragile looking. I felt so bad I could not help her feel better.

She often fell asleep with her bible on her face she looked like she was searching for a answer to something that was happening inside her she did not understand.

I had to take the bible of her face when she finally was able to sit still and take a short nap. Her sleeping pattern was all off as well.

The night before she took her life I remember so clear all the details. I remember everything.. from how she kept rocking in our rocking chair we had in the living room. She would not stop. She also was talking

much faster than usual and walking much faster as well. When I asked her to stop rocking so fast she just looked at me like she couldn’t stop, or didn’t want to. It was like someone was pushing her to rock. I thought it very odd at the time but soon overlooked it because her behavior had been so altered lately that I almost was getting use to it.

Lori came into my bedroom late that night and stood in my doorway. She was talking to me.

The last thing she said was “Well I’ll see you in the morning!” and off she went down the hallway and I heard the door slam as it always did behind her. I did not know it then but that was the last time I would see her alive.

On September 22 1981 I was getting ready for school. I went into her room to borrow a shirt of hers and I quietly asked her if I could borrow it.

She did not answer. So I took it and got ready to catch the bus.

As I walked out the front door down our driveway I had to pass her car. From a distance all I could see was RED. My first thought was “here she goes again, She is trying to fool me again, and this time she used Ketchup!

Well as I got closer..I saw my sister through the car window as she lay on her side with her head on the headrest of the passenger side door. I could see her face clearly. There was blood dripping from her bottom lip onto the seat and still I was in disbelief.

Our father came out of the house broke the driver side window unlocked the door got in the car reached across her body to unlock the passenger side door ran around the car as fast as he could to then find out my sister was not moving. She was not alive. She was gone. My sister’s body lay across my fathers lap and he just kept repeating

Why?

My father’s spirit died at that moment he realized his daughter was dead.

We had no answers, there was no evidence that somebody could of helped her there was no clues left behind. So It appeared at the time “suspicious”

Decades later the truth has surfaced. Finally I was able to put it all together. I was going through my sister’s box of things I packed almost 28 years ago. I came across many things I remembered from the time… Including a medicine bottle. We knew my sister was put on a medicine to help her with stress from the divorce so it was not a surprise that I packed the bottle off her dresser.

However..the shock came to me when I typed the name of the drug into the computer just months ago.

Slowly…it all came together..and I mean all of it. From the things she said to the things she did. To the rocking in the chair to the things she was seeing that were not there ..and finally to the flu like symptoms that come with theSudden withdrawal of the medication!

The Black Box Warnings that today are on ALL antidepressant drugs says it all.

My sister was put on this drug Aug. 18 1981. She stopped taking it as many people did due to the side effects.
She was in bed with the flu which turned out to be not the flu at all but the withdrawl from this prescription drug that in the end killed my sister!

I WAS 13 YEARS OLD
LORI WAS 25

PEOPLE ASK ME WHY NOW DOES THIS MATTER?

MY ANSWER IS…BECAUSE NUMBER ONE MY SISTER IS DEAD.

NUMBER TWO I AT 13 HAD TO LIVE MY ENTIRE LIFE WITH SUSPICION ABOUT WHAT
HAD HAPPENED TO HER!

I HAD TO LIVE WITH THE NIGHTMARES, I COULD NOT WALK BY A PARKED CAR FOR
YEARS DUE TO THE FEAR OF SEEING HER INSIDE AGAIN,
I WOULD GO TO THE COMETARY FOR THE FIRST FEW YEARS RIGHT FROM SCHOOL
AND JUST SIT AND ASK..WHY..HOW..SOMETHING IS MISSING. I KNOW YOU DID
NOT DO THIS. YOU WOULD NOT DO THIS.

I WAS TORMENTED BY HER BECAUSE OF A MIND ALTERING DRUG..THAT WAS AND
STILL IS LEGAL IN THIS COUNTRY.

I COULD NOT SAY GOODBYE TO HER WHEN SHE DIED BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID TO GO
UP TO THE COFFIN DUE TO THE FACT I THOUGHT SHE WOULD JUMP UP AT ME AND
LAUGH LIKE SHE DID BEFORE.

I HAVE BEEN THROUGH HELL BECAUSE OF THE DAMAGE THIS DRUG DID TO MY
SISTER..AND TO MY FAMILY.

AND I KNOW THERE ARE OTHER FAMILIES OUT THERE STILL IN THE DARK!!
I HOPE TO FIND THEM AND LET THEM KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THEIR
LOVED ONE IF OUR STORIES ARE SIMILAR..AND THIS RX DRUG WAS INVOLVED!

ALSO PRIOR TO THE SSRI THE CLASS OF DRUG LORI WAS ON WAS CALLED A TCA. TRICYCLIC 3 RING MAKE UP..THIS DRUG WAS THE FIRST ANTIDEPRESSANT INVENTED IN THE LATE 1950?S.

** MANY DID NOT LIKE THE DRUG DUE TO ALL THE SIDE EFFECTS/ADVERSE REACTIONS THAT CAME ALONG WITH IT.
MOST PEOPLE WHO TOOK THIS IN CLINICAL TRIALS OR STUDIES SHOWED THEY DROPPED OUT DUE TO THESE SIDE EFFECTS. NEVER GOT TO THE POINT WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSE TO TAKE EFFECT!
THAT IS WHAT MY RESEARCH SHOWED.. BUT YOU ASK ANN TRACY.

YOU MAY WANT TO ADD THIS TO LORI’S STORY SOMEWHERE IF YOU CAN:
WHEN WE TOLD HER DOCTOR SHE WAS ACTING LIKE SHE WAS ABOUT DEATH AND DYING..WE WERE TOLD NOT TO WORRY ABOUT IT THAT SHE WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING BECAUSE IT WAS NOT IN HER. SHE WOULD NOT REALLY HARM HERSELF OF ANYONE ELSE.

WELL…THAT WAS ANOTHER PIECE THAT DID NOT FIT.
THIS WAS TRUE.

**** THE DOCTOR BACK IN 1981 WHO GAVE HER THIS DRUG FOR MERE STRESS OF A DIVORCE…DID NOT KNOW..THE DRUG THEY GAVE HER WAS INDUCING HER BEHAVIOR.
THEY HAD NO IDEA..THEY WERE IN THE DARK JUST AS LORI WAS..AND US HER FAMILY WERE.

IT JUST SIMPLY LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS GOING CRAZY AND LOSING HER MIND!!
WHEN IN ACTUALITY SHE WASN’T..THE DRUG WAS INDUCING THIS REACTION!

but the one thing I wanted to make clear on the taking this drug Imipramine is that FROM START TO FINISH IT WAS ABOUT A MONTH. AUG 18 1981 SHE STARTED IT.

THEN STOPPED she told a friend I dont like how this medicine is making me feel Im not taking it anymore.
SEPT. 22 1981 SHE SHOT HERSELF IN THE HEAD AT 1AM.
FOUND AT 7AM PRONOUNCED DEAD AT 8:32AM

AND HER SUSPICIOUS SUICIDE WAS JUST RECENTLY SOLVED AS OF A FEW MONTHS AGO!
I AM OUTRAGED!

The Note she left behind said: It’s Nobody’s fault I Just Flipped!!!
then drew a smiley face.”

She often drew smiley faces when she wrote things in general. but even the smiley face did not match her normal happy ones.

Lptpkp@aol.com

PLEASE SIGN Lori’s Petition to help me find others: http://tinyurl.com/mt63tp

Part of the Warning on this drug today:
patients should be carefully supervised during the early phase of treatment with imipramine, and may require hospitalization. Prescriptions should be written for the smallest amount feasible.

Hypomanic or manic episodes may occur, Such reactions may necessitate discontinuation of the drug. If needed, imipramine may be resumed in lower dosage when these episodes are relieved.

All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric. Although a causal link between the emergence of such symptoms and either the worsening of depression and/or the emergence of suicidal impulses has not been established, there is concern that such symptoms may represent precursors to emerging suicidality.

Consideration should be given to changing the therapeutic regimen, including possibly discontinuing the medication, in patients whose depression is persistently worse, OR who are experiencing emergent suicidality or symptoms that might be precursors to worsening depression or suicidality, especially if these symptoms are severe, abrupt in onset, or were not part of the patient’s presenting symptoms.

Families and caregivers of patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder or other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric, should be alerted about the need to monitor patients for the emergence of agitation, irritability, unusual changes in behavior, and the other symptoms described above, as well as the emergence of suicidality, and to report such symptoms immediately to health care providers. Such monitoring should include daily observation by families and caregivers.

patients should be carefully supervised during the early phase of treatment with imipramine, and may require hospitalization. Prescriptions should be written for the smallest amount feasible.

Hypomanic or manic episodes may occur, Such reactions may necessitate discontinuation of the drug. If needed, imipramine may be resumed in lower dosage when these episodes are relieved.