WATERLOO -- Maxine Brecunier watched her son try. And then she watched her son die.

While she looked on helplessly, John Robert Brecunier died in slow motion as he lost control of his reality, his mind and his life-sustaining organs over a span of hours Feb. 28.

On Wednesday, Maxine Brecunier finally confirmed what she had suspected since that winter day.

Her 23-year-old son had died of a drug overdose, or as the Iowa Medical Examiner's Office put it, a cardiac arrhythmia caused by acute intoxication from methamphetamine, cocaine and norpseudoephedrine.

Medical Examiner Julia Goodin said the autopsy confirmed suspicions John Brecunier had swallowed the drugs -- apparently to hide them during a police raid at an acquaintance's house hours earlier -- and was unable to regurgitate them.

The manner of death, Goodin ruled, was accidental.

The news brought some sense of closure for Maxine Brecunier, who still lives in the same upstairs apartment in east Waterloo where her son uttered his last words on the bathroom floor.

"He had a lot of things going against him," Maxine Brecunier said.

She had watched him struggle through bad times in the past and tried to help as best she could.

The mother believes he became involved in the illegal drug trade because his past kept him from getting a decent job and he had no other way to make money.

Giving up

At the time he died, John Brecunier, a father of two, had bottomed out again and couldn't find a way to get his life back on track.

He had earned his GED while in the Eldora juvenile facility. At age 18, he was convicted of shooting another teen-ager in the arm with a 9 mm pistol and was sent to prison, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

When it came time to leave prison, John Brecunier said wasn't ready to return to the outside, his mother said.

He was released to an intensive probation program, and things were looking up for awhile.

The program picked up the tab for an apartment below his mother's place. All of the utilities were paid, so all he had to worry about was making money for food and other expenses.

But the obstacles of his past were already in place.

Maxine Brecunier said her son wanted to be an electrician, but he couldn't get into community college or find a job because of his criminal record.

Then, the probation program quit paying his rent. He ceased taking his psychiatric medication because it appeared to be giving him heart problems.

"He started giving up," she said. "Nobody out there was helping him."

The mother noticed he was making money somehow, but she didn't pry because she feared the reaction it might bring. Because of his schizophrenia, he could become paranoid and had trouble trusting people. She worried she could lose his trust if she started asking questions.

"I was the one who kept him calm," she said.

Drug raid

Local narcotics investigators began watching Justin Hoffman's house on Washington Street when they received tips about drug sales in January, according to court records.

In early February, officers sent a confidential informant to the home to make a purchase. After a second methamphetamine buy at the end of the month, agents with the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Task Force got a search warrant Feb. 27, records state.

Officers found more than 42 grams of marijuana and a loaded KBI .380-caliber handgun, records state.

Hoffman, who records state had more than $2,700 in cash in his pockets, was arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver while in possession of a firearm, possession of cocaine and drug tax stamp act violation.

Another person in the home, 24-year-old Champ Lewis Thaxton, was arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and violation of the drug tax stamp act during the search. He had $2,983 in his pants pocket, records state.

Court records show Brecunier was at the house during the 8:30 p.m. raid, but it isn't clear why he was allowed to leave.

Although The Courier was unable to find anyone who saw Brecunier swallow drugs, authorities said it is a common practice for suspects to gulp down their product when confronted by officers. It's preferred over flushing it down a toilet because the suspect can then throw it up later, clean it off and sell it.

Protected hostage

The drugs had taken a strong hold of John Brecunier when he and his girlfriend, Jennifer Irish, arrived at his mother's apartment the next morning and woke her.

"The first thing he told me was he was going to die," Maxine Brecunier said.

It wasn't what he said that disturbed her. She often didn't know what to make of what he told her and "took it with a grain of salt."

But the tone of his voice told her something was seriously wrong.

Gripped in paranoia, her son, armed with a large-caliber handgun, barricaded the apartment and wouldn't let her or Irish get too close to the windows.

For the next three hours, the two women, now "protected hostages," watched as John Brecunier deteriorated.

He didn't want to go to the hospital, his mother said. He feared doctors would tell police, and his probation would be revoked and he'd be sent back to prison.

He wanted to be free so he could be with his sons, she said.

Maxine Brecunier was in a similar situation. Not knowing exactly what was causing the episode or the seriousness of it, she wanted to take him to the hospital.

But she was afraid what he might do if he saw her call 911 or saw flashing lights pull up at the house -- or what authorities might have to resort to when they encountered her son with a loaded weapon and scrambled mind.

She decided the best option would be to call for help when he passed out.

Over the next three hours, John Brecunier offered cryptic hints about what he had been doing to make money.

"He said it was the only way he could survive without taking stuff from everybody else," Maxine Brecunier said.

His face became swollen from trying unsuccessfully to vomit, she said.

Finally, just before 1 p.m., John Brecunier called his mother into the bathroom. He was standing there, staring at himself in the mirror.

She asked him to lay down, and he complied.

"Am I safe now?" he asked, according to the mother's account.

She assured him he was. That's when his mother suspects he died.

An autopsy was completed shortly after he was pronounced dead at Allen Hospital. However, the study wasn't finalized until recently when the toxicology tests were finished.

Back in her apartment, Maxine Brecunier said her son would be alive today if there had been more support services for him after his prison stint. She worries about other young people who fall into drugs because a lack of options.

"If they had other options, maybe they wouldn't be doing it," she said. "My son didn't want to be doing that."