MOTHER KNOWS METH CAN KILL NONUSERS, TOO

In a cemetery in the small Seminole County town of Little, Jennifer Shultz
rests in her grave. In a cell at the Cleveland County jail, Christopher
Ward awaits a September trial on charges he put her there.

. Meth: Shattered Lives

Two victims, two lives ruined by what law enforcement officials describe as
Oklahoma's methamphetamine epidemic.

Shultz, a 20-year-old student at Seminole State College, first met Ward at
the Love's Country Store where she worked to help pay for school.

He was working on a nearby construction project, and knew Shultz from
visits he made to the store.

The two befriended each other and, in June 2002, went out on their first date.

Tammie Shultz, Jennifer Shultz' mother, put her daughter through the ringer
as any mother would.

"I said, 'I need to know this boy's name before you go out with him,
because for all I know he could be a drug dealer,'" Tammie Shultz said.
"She just looked at me and laughed."

Jennifer Shultz found out that night that Ward was indeed a convicted drug
dealer, sent to jail for six years for making and selling methamphetamine.

"He told Jennifer he was really trying to change his life, that he was
really trying to make a good thing out of himself," Tammie Shultz said. "We
thought, well, everybody does deserve a second chance."

Jennifer Shultz was the type of person who thought she could help people,
her mother said.

Shultz, a graduate of Prague High School, was active in the First Baptist
Church of Prague. She traveled to Colorado for church missions and helped
counsel youngsters.

She was a member of the Prague pompom team and was named band queen her
senior year. At Seminole State College, she was a member of the
cheerleading team and worked long hours at the Love's store to earn extra
money.

"She was very caring," Tammie Shultz said. "Any of her friends, the
preacher, they would tell you she was a good kid.

"She just got mixed up with the wrong person and was in the wrong place at
the wrong time."

The wrong place was in a trailer in rural Cleveland County and the wrong
time was Jan. 18.

That night an alleged methamphetamine lab explosion sent Jennifer Shultz to
the hospital. She died seven days later from injuries suffered in the blast.

Ward, 26, was named in a federal grand jury indictment filed May 8. Along
with another defendant, Christy Danielle Tiger, 26, he is charged with an
attempt to manufacture methamphetamine that resulted in an explosion and
Shultz' death. A second person, Daniel Long of Newalla, 16, also died from
injuries suffered in the explosion.

Both defendants face life in prison.

"Jennifer was never involved in things like this," Tammie Shultz said. "She
went to church, graduated out of high school, had many friends. She was a
caring person.

"He just basically came in and she fell for everything he said."

Tammie Shultz said she worried that publicity about her daughter's death
would lead people to think Jennifer Shultz was a user of methamphetamine.

But she said that likely wasn't the case.

Her daughter regularly acted as a designated driver at parties, Tammie
Shultz said, and once refused to date a man because he was known to have
smoked marijuana.

There was just something about Ward that captured Jennifer Shultz' interest.

"He is a con artist," Tammie Shultz said. "He would say he didn't know
where he'd be without her.

"Jennifer believed what he would say and thought that she could change him,
could turn him around the right way."

Whatever direction Ward ends up going, it will be determined in the
Oklahoma City federal courthouse.

What Tammie Shultz is sure of is that methamphetamine is a plague to her
family and the state.

"Meth is so bad in Oklahoma," she said. "It's everywhere. It could be your
neighbor. They make it driving down the road.

"There's young kids out there that have fried their brains over stuff that
you clean your toilet with. Why would you want to put something like that
in your system?"

The ingredients in methamphetamine -- in some cases battery acid, ammonia
and fertilizer -- create a highly addictive, toxic drug that yellows users'
skin, rots teeth, deteriorates vital organs and causes permanent schizophrenia.

Ask Tammie Shultz and she'll tell you it's toxic to those who don't use it,
as well.

"It's ruined my life and I've never used it," she said. "It's killed my
daughter and it took a big chunk out of me."