photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Terriana Audry Atkinson appears at her sentencing hearing on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A mother who lost a son to a fentanyl overdose described her “crippling grief” Friday morning to a Douglas County judge at the sentencing hearing of the woman who had a hand in the young man’s death.

Christina Aldridge, the mother of Cameron Bricker, who died at age 26 on Dec. 9, 2022, after buying pills from the defendant, Terriana Audry Atkinson, placed a framed photo of her son on the lectern as she addressed Judge Sally Pokorny.

“There’s not a day, hour or minute that I do not think of Cameron,” she said.

Aldridge talked about her son’s infectious smile, his “heart of gold” and his warm relationship with his 12-year-old baby sister.

Then she told the court about a scene that plays over and over in her mind every day: the moment she saw her son on the floor after the overdose, medical rescue patches on his chest. She was not allowed to touch him.

“He looked like he was sleeping,” she said. “I wanted to say ‘wake up, wake up.'”

Cameron Bricker

Bricker’s father, Gregory Bricker, did not speak in person but gave a written statement that was read aloud by Assistant District Attorney Samantha Foster.

Bricker described a close relationship with his son, their daily phone calls, their shared love of cooking — Cameron had worked at several area restaurants — and the heartbreak he feels that Cameron will never know the joy of fatherhood.

He called Atkinson’s drug dealing “a senseless and reckless act” that was a “death sentence” for his son. He asked the court to show no leniency.

“I hope you can see the number of deaths being caused by fentanyl,” he told the judge, who had the discretion within the Kansas sentencing guidelines, given Atkinson’s lack of criminal history, to give Atkinson prison time or probation.

Pokorny opted for probation, which the state did not oppose, after hearing from the parties, including from Atkinson herself, a 26-year-old mother of two who apologized to Cameron’s family through tears.

Atkinson’s attorney, Jessica Glendening, told the court that her client felt a “significant amount of remorse” and that she was drawn into the world of drug dealing out of financial desperation as a struggling mother. She said that Atkinson did not know that the pills she sold contained fentanyl — she thought they were oxycodone — and that she was one of a number of people who gave pills to Cameron before his overdose.

Atkinson was originally charged with one count of distributing a substance causing death, a level-one felony that could have resulted in a minimum sentence of just over 12 years if she had been convicted of it, but in July she entered into a deal with the state and pleaded no contest to the lower-level drug felony of distribution of a controlled substance.

Pokorny acknowledged the sorrow of Cameron’s family, saying that losing a child was unimaginable pain, whether “you lose that child in utero or when you are 90 years old and your child is 70.”

“Your pain is palpable,” she said.

But she said the sentence she was there to pronounce Friday was for the lesser offense of distributing a controlled substance, punishable by 14 to 16 months in prison with probation as a possibility depending on the offender’s prior record.

“I try not to view sentencing as payback or solely for the purpose of punishment,” she said, noting her belief that society would be better served by Atkinson getting help outside of prison and her young children not ending up in state custody.

Pokorny suspended a 15-month prison term for Atkinson to 18 months of probation. Atkinson will be required to register as a drug offender for 15 years.

“You can’t see her face,” Pokorny told the spectators who were seated behind Atkinson, “but she’s in pain too.”