Teen's life ends as he was trying to save it
He wanted to get his life together, but then came a fatal party. Now family and friends are mourning his death.
By CAMILLE C. SPENCER
Published August 31, 2006
This was the week Frank Sebaugh V was supposed to turn over a new leaf.
He'd been a no-show at Ridgewood High School so often that his mother skipped work as a bookkeeper at a Yankeetown mobile home park to make sure he went.
For his part, Frank, 17, told his mother last week that he'd start attending school regularly. The 10th-grader even wrote a list of chores on the refrigerator at Gayle Sebaugh's Port Richey home:
Clean the shower. Take out the garbage. Mow the lawn.
But Frankie, as his friends called him, never got the chance to turn his life around.
After taking a lethal cocktail of methadone, a pain reliever, and Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, at a hotel party with four friends, he died Sunday at the Days Inn in Port Richey.
The cause of Frank's death has not been determined, pending toxicology tests, according to the Pasco County Medical Examiner's Office. The results can take up to six weeks.
"At such a young age, he's left a huge hole in our lives," said Frank's aunt, Pat Todd, of Clover S.C.
* * *
Trouble began brewing for Frank at an early age.
Frank's father, Frank Sebaugh IV, physically abused Frank, according to his mother and his best friend, Dana Bombaro.
No child abuse charges have been filed against Frank's dad. But he has a lengthy criminal record, from aggravated battery to drug charges.
Most of the charges have been dropped, records show.
Gayle Sebaugh said she also was abused by her now ex-husband. Fearing for her safety and that of her son, she decided to leave.
In 1998, mother and son moved out of the Moon Lake home they shared with Frank Sebaugh IV to live with Gayle Sebaugh's mother. The next year, Gayle Sebaugh filed a domestic violence injunction against her husband, records show.
The two eventually moved from Gayle Sebaugh's mother's house to their own house in Port Richey. Gayle Sebaugh had legal custody of the boy until 2002, when her triple bouts with pneumonia allowed Frank Sebaugh IV to get custody of their son.
Life with his father meant instability and exposure to drug use, Gayle Sebaugh said.
"Even if he Frank Sebaugh IV isn't there, you don't know who is going to be there," she said. "It's not a place to be."
For two years, Frank stayed with his father. In 2004, he ran away to live with his mother, who regained custody of him. He lived with her and his mother's fiance.
Against his mother's will, Frank sometimes stopped by his father's house. He rode his bike there Thursday.
His mother said he planned to retrieve a dirt bike and some of her jewelry. His father wasn't home and Frank didn't have a key, Bombaro said, so Frank broke in. He never found the bike or jewelry, his mother said.
But friends and family say Frank didn't leave empty-handed.
He filled a small bookbag with Xanax and methadone pills he found in the house. He scratched the labels off the bottles so that if caught, he wouldn't get in trouble, best friend Dana Bombaro said.
He began popping the pills on Thursday, Bombaro said.
From a Moon Lake gas station, a distraught Frank called Bombaro, and asked her to pick him up.
"He said, 'I need help, come get me,"' Bombaro said.
Bombaro met Frank about a year ago, after she moved from Miami. Bombaro, 20, shares an apartment with a roommate about three blocks from where Frank and his mother live. They met in the neighborhood. Frank often hung out at her apartment.
Often they went to 7-Eleven, where Frank would get Mountain Dew and mozzarella sticks. He left the bottles all over her apartment.
She described Frank, at 6-4 and over 250 pounds, as a big teddy bear with a heart of gold.
When he needed a ride last Thursday, Bombaro didn't hesitate. She took him back to her apartment to hang out.
"He said he was getting back at his dad for hurting his mom," Bombaro said. "I guess he meant stealing his (dad's) stash. He said, 'When he (dad) gets out (of jail), he won't have anything to sell and he'll go broke."'
* * *
An excited Frank called Bombaro Saturday morning.
It was a friend's birthday. "You ready to party?' " Bombaro recalled.
They decided the best place would be the Days Inn in Port Richey.
With most of the five-person group underage, the birthday girl's sister agreed to arrange the room. Frank would pay for the room with $70 he got from selling some of the drugs from his father's house, Bombaro said.
At 10 p.m. Saturday, Bombaro picked Frank up at home. Frank had the bookbag filled with pills. The pills surprised Bombaro, who said Frank didn't do drugs.
"He said he got the pills from his dad's house," Bombaro said. "He wasn't a drug addict. He felt like if you opened up and told people what was wrong, you'd be a baby."
Bombaro recalled a conversation she had with Frank two weeks ago.
"He told me his dad beat him, and how his whole life, people made fun of him and he didn't have any friends," Bombaro said.
But that night, he enjoyed the company of the few friends he had.
* * *
In Room 203 at the Days Inn, the group partied. They listened to music and drank beer. Frank took some of the pills. At one point, Bombaro said Frank pulled her over to tell her something.
"He said I was his role model and best friend," she said. "He said, 'Thanks for driving me to 7-Eleven for Mountain Dew and mozzarella sticks.' "
Later, Frank relayed an eerie message to the group.
"He told everybody goodbye and that he loved us," Bombaro said.
Soon, the group fell asleep. Bombaro slept on the floor, and Frank on a bed.
But Bombaro couldn't sleep. Soon, she heard Frank get up.
"He coughed, so I got him some water," Bombaro said.
Frank went back to sleep. Then, a half-hour later, Bombaro felt Frank grab her arm.
"I said, 'Are you all right?' He started shaking."
Bombaro put her finger down his throat, trying to help him throw up. But nothing came out. Then she gave him CPR. But nothing happened.
Then the maid came to the door.
"I screamed 'Call 911,' " Bombaro said.
She held Frank's hand. She told him he'd be okay.
When rescue workers arrived, they pronounced Frank dead.
He was wearing a turquoise Angels hat that he got at a trip to Gulf View Square Mall with Bombaro.
After his death, Bombaro blamed herself. She'd tried to encourage Frank to remain on track. But she wonders whether that was enough.
"I had told him I wasn't going to answer his phone calls if he didn't go to school," she said.
* * *
Now Gayle Sebaugh is planning her son's Sept. 6 funeral. The teen's father, Frank Sebaugh IV, sits in the Land O'Lakes Detention Center for violating his probation Aug. 18, records show.
He declined a request Wednesday to be interviewed by the Pasco Times. "In pain and mourning," he wrote on the form faxed back to the newspaper.
So are some of Frank's classmates, who met with grief counselors at Ridgewood this week.
Meanwhile, Gayle Sebaugh mourned for the boy who liked to swim and ride his bike. Her fiance's relatives got the Sheriff's Office before she could last Sunday, calling her with the worst news a mother could get.
"I still didn't believe it," she said. "I was hoping it wasn't him."
Camille C. Spencer can be reached at 727-869-6229 or cspencer@sptimes.com.