Selection to start for GHB trial DETROIT (AP) - What killed 15-year-old Samantha Reid a year ago isn't disputed: At an apartment party the Detroit River, community she swallowed a lethal dose of a date-rape drug slipped into her soft drink. But who supplied the drug called GHB - and who knew it was secretly placed - will be at issue at one of the nation's first trials in a death related to gamma-hydroxybutyrate. Jury selection is to begin today in the Detroit manslaughter trial of four men accused over that January 1999 night in Grosse Ile, where GHB fatally sickened Samantha and put one of her friends in a coma. A third girl alleged to have unknowingly ingested the powerful central nervous system depressant was not sickened. Erick Limmer of Grosse Ile; Joshua Cole of Southgate; Daniel Brayman of Trenton; and Nicholas Holtschlag of Wayne County's Brownstown Township are charged with manslaughter in Samantha's death. Cole, who will have his own jury as the only defendant alleged to have confessed, also faces three counts of felony poisoning, each carrying a possible life sentence. Doug Baker, the assistant Wayne County prosecutor who will try the case, said testimony could show the defendants all knew the odorless, nearly tasteless drug was being slipped to the girls during the get-together in Limmer's apartment Jan. 16, 1999. "What the jury will hear is that the boys were in the kitchen alone - all of them but Limmer - when the drinks were mixed, and they all came out when they handed the drinks to the others," Baker said. Reid, who fell unconscious and vomited shortly after gulping down a GHB-spiked Mountain Dew she first termed "gross," died the next day. An assistant Wayne County medical examiner has testified GHB levels in the girls were more than twice the level found fatal in other cases. "I don't have any doubt (Reid) was given GHB, and I don't have any doubt it killed her," says John Gates Jr., Brayman's Royal Oak attorney. "But the real key in this will be the witnesses that were present." And that's where the disputed versions begin. Gates and Brian Dailey - Holtschlag's attorney from Farmington Hills - said last week they plan to argue their clients were unaware GHB was even present the night in question. They plan to lay the blame with Cole, whose attorney - John Courtright of Allen Park - says his client spiked the drinks with what he believed was only a harmless intoxicant supplied by Limmer. "There was no intent to poison or harm these girls," Courtright says on Cole's behalf, arguing the trial should be only about manslaughter, a count carrying up to 15 years in prison. "It disturbs me they're being charged with this poisoning." Courtright said Cole "had no ideas of the dangers" of the substance and "played with fire" by adding it to the drinks, resulting in "a very tragic case." "Sure, the other defendants are going to blame everything on my client," Courtright said. Only Cole's jury will hear his alleged confession to investigators. Limmer has said he was gone or in his bedroom most of the night the girls were drugged. When Reid and another girl fell ill, Limmer refused to call an ambulance and "told us we were never there," the girl who was not sickened by the GHB later testified. She said she and all of the suspects but Limmer put the sick girls in a van and drove them to a hospital. Limmer's Mount Clemens attorney, Cecil St. Pierre, last week did not return several messages seeking comment on behalf of his client, who's also charged with possession of GHB and delivery of marijuana. Since 1990, GHB has been linked to at least 58 deaths and more than 5,700 recorded overdoses, the Drug Enforcement Administration has said. In 1990, the FDA banned GHB for public sale amid concerns about its use as a dietary supplement, and a 1998 Michigan law made possessing the drug a felony. Michigan and about 20 other states have classified GHB a controlled substance. To Baker, the trial is "extremely important as a message to the community - especially the community of young people - that this is a very dangerous drug that can lead to horribly tragic consequences." "Hopefully, the trial will serve, among other things, to make that known," he said. Originally on page 7A in the 1-31-2000 issue of the Daily.