ARNOLD, MO (KMOX) – Lindsay Michelle Price, 29, of High Ridge overdosed taking Kratom laced with fentanyl and passed away March 6th, 2022. That's the "news" portion of this story and usually the end of the story, publicly. KMOX reporter Stuart McMillian went beyond the police blotter to get the rest of Lindsay’s story.
"Lindsay was our oldest child," her father Jeff Price said. He explained how they lived in Troy, Illinois for 30 years before moving to High Ridge in 2021. "Lindsay was a beautiful child," Jeff remembered. "She sang and played just like any other kid and everything was going well. Later in high school, she got involved with some people and started doing some drugs."
Jeff and his wife Karen Price sent Lindsay to several drug rehabs over the years. She would do well for a while then relapse. Her most recent stint at a faith-based rehab facility in Kentucky seemed to help the most.
"Grandma's been praying for her since the day she was born," said Lindsay's grandmother Donna Miles. "And I invited her to church and invited her to church. When she went to the faith-based rehab, she was different when she came out."
So Lindsay went to Exchange Church in Arnold and got plugged in.
"You just knew that she was starving for this purpose in Christ," said Pastor Jimmy Dunn. "She was looking for a way to serve. She had a wonderful singing voice and volunteered to sing in church. She came in early one day to help make coffee. She was wanting to find ways to fit in."
Things were good. Lindsay even was even engaged to be married to a man named William Propst from Pennsylvania and was splitting time here and there. She had been clean for a whole year after being addicted to opioids for nearly 12 years.
"Jeff and Karen told me all the issues they had with her and all of the struggles and demons and things she was dealing with," said Pastor Dunn. "That's not the person I knew because I knew the new Lindsay, the in Christ Lindsay. Then I got a call from Donna. She said, 'Hey, Lindsay passed away unexpectedly'."
Her father Jeff was the one who found her.
"Then one morning, I was making biscuits and gravy, went in to wake her up and that was it," Jeff said. Later they discovered Lindsay had sought out someone on the black market to buy Kratom. Karen said her daughter "bought it from somebody she didn't know personally and it happened to be laced with fentanyl."
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Kratom is legal in Missouri and by itself it is not deadly. The Drug Enforcement Administration says it causes stimulant and sedative effects in different doses. Karen said she doesn't believe Lindsay knew she was taking fentanyl but she could not say for sure. "[Lindsay] was sober and clean up until five o'clock the night before. She cooked dinner for just the two of us and we sat and ate together. She was 100% sober at that time."
The morning of Lindsay's funeral the family believes they received some closure from a family heirloom. An old grandfather clock sits in the foyer of the Price's home and has been broken for a long time. It chimed eight times before they left to the funeral home. After doing some research, the Price family learned the significance of those chimes. They found out old vessels a sea would end a crew's watch with eight bells. In the Bible, the number eight indicates when a person is resurrected from the dead into eternal life.
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In the wake of Lindsay’s death, memorial donations started mounting up from all who heard her about her tragic end. The Price family decided to gift it all to to the church that meant so much to her a sum of 10 thousand dollar.
"Friends, family, people in this church... they gave, they gave, and they gave. So we decided we needed to do something with that money to honor Lindsay." Exchange Church put in a playground to do just that.
Lindsay's playground is already being put to good use. Non-profit All For Family uses it as a safe place for supervised foster care visits.
"Our budget was so limited to be able to put in a playground," said founder of All For Family Angel Williams. "When Pastor Dunn approached us and said, 'We have a young lady from our Church who passed away and the family wants to bless the church and we want to put in a playground,' I was so touched by that story because it could serve so many purposes and our families [at All For Family] will greatly enjoy it. Most of the families we serve are coming from drug addiction.
29-year-old Lindsay Michelle Price of High Ridge passed away March 6th, 2022 after overdosing on Kratom laced with fentanyl but she had a family, a church, and a community who cared. Her legacy of faith will carry on in the form of a playground.
"Lindsay loved children," said Karen Price. "She was looking forward to getting married and having children of her own. That was her number one goal in life. I think she would be really happy and really proud that the church that she loved so much now has a safe place for kids to play and I think she's looking down on us and smiling.
