'What Happened?' Girls Allegedly Drugged by Friends' Dad at Sleepover Displayed Alarming Symptoms
One girl started "to feel woozy, hot and clumsy" after drinking smoothies that investigators allege her friend's father laced with Benzodiazepines
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Stock image of police tapeParents of three 12-year-old girls became suspicious of an Oregon father after two of the children displayed concerning behavior the morning after a sleepover at the man's house with his daughter.
In a probable cause affidavit obtained by PEOPLE, police allege that Michael Meyden laced a batch of mango smoothies he made for four girls at a sleepover last August. Meyden, 57, turned himself in to police last week and pleaded not guilty to nine felony and misdemeanor charges including causing another person to ingest a controlled substance, according to the Lake Oswego Police Department.
Meyden’s bond was set at $50,000 and jail records reviewed by PEOPLE show the now-divorced father of two is no longer in custody.
According to the affidavit, one of his daughter’s friends drank two smoothies, a second girl drank one, and a third “barely drank any at all,” allegedly leading Meyden to make her a second smoothie. The affidavit alleges that Meyden became "upset" with the girl who barely drank the smoothie.
The affidavit alleges that later that night, the girl who barely drank the smoothie remained awake and “pretended to be asleep.” Meanwhile, according to the affidavit, Meyden repeatedly came down to the basement to check on the four girls, allegedly putting his finger under the nose of the girl who drank two smoothies to check if she was asleep. The two girls were sharing a pull-out couch in Meyden’s basement while his daughter and the girl who only drank one smoothie slept in an adjacent bedroom, according to the affidavit.
The girl who barely drank her smoothie remained secretly awake while Meyden allegedly removed her arm from around her friend’s body and separated them on the bed just before 2 a.m., hours after he told them to go to sleep, the affidavit claims.
Related: Ore. Dad Accused of Drugging Girls at Sleepover Got Divorced from Wife Weeks After Alleged Incident
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Meyden went back upstairs one more time, allowing the girl pretending to be asleep the chance to frantically text her mom and several other friends begging to be picked up, the affidavit alleges. Soon, a friend answered the girl’s text and sent her mother to go pick her up. The girl then woke up her parents when she got home and told them what happened, leading them to contact the remaining two girls’ parents, who picked up their daughters roughly an hour later in the middle of the night.
The girl who drank two of the smoothies and her mother told police the next morning that “she could not walk on her own upon getting home” from Meyden’s house, according to the affidavit.
The girl’s mother told police she “had to carry her inside of the house and that the girl “was scared and just kept repeating ‘what happened’ before they decided to come to the hospital,” the affidavit says.
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According to the affidavit, the same girl told police she recalled “starting to feel woozy, hot and clumsy shortly after drinking the second smoothie” and that at one point she was “telling scary stories then going to stand up and ‘tipping over’” before deciding to go to bed. The girl described going into a "thick, deep sleep" that she “never experienced before,” according to the affidavit.
Related: Girls at Sleepover Were Allegedly Drugged by 12-Year-Old's Dad: 'I Don't Feel Safe'
Urine samples taken the morning after the sleepover confirmed all three girls had Benzodiazepine in their system, according to the affidavit.
Less than two months after the incident last summer, Meyden got divorced from his wife of 16 years. He’s now living in Vancouver, Wash., according to local KIRO7.
Additional reporting by Christine Pelisek.
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