EDWARDSVILLE — It’s been a week since the funeral. Cleanup has begun. But visitors continue to drive into a neighborhood of big trees and huge homes here to support Sarah Topal, a grieving mother with a mounting list of tough questions.
She’s dedicated her social work career to improving society’s safety net.
Why did her son, Kaden, 18, have to fall through it?
“If my son wasn’t caught, with all the red flags I raised, I can’t imagine what is happening,” said Sarah, 43, seated out by her pool with friends Thursday night.
Kaden had been in long decline. Somebody fatally shot him late May 16 at a Wood River apartment complex. Other than an early statement that it wasn’t a random act of violence, the police chief hasn’t provided an update.
“There were so many opportunities to save his life,” said his mother. “No one took it seriously.”
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For years, her son suffered from drug addiction and had behavioral health struggles that led him into the Madison County juvenile justice system and, later, the Ƶ County Jail. His father did time in federal prison for drugs, but his mother said Kaden had good support — if he’d accept it.
Though Sarah works in the reentry field, helping offenders regain footing in the community after prison, she wished her son had spent more time behind bars. She said she was pleading with officials to arrest him in the weeks leading up to his death.
“I knew Kaden was a threat,” she said. “I do this work for a living.”
She recently left the leadership team at and will soon be executive director of .
She said she sent Kaden to nine in-patient rehab programs nationwide, from California to Florida to St. Charles. None of them stuck. Early last year, she said, she revived him from an overdose. She said he was released from a hospital without follow-up treatment and went on to overdose at least three more times.
Last fall, he was charged in Ƶ County with two felony counts of unlawful use of a weapon, including one case that alleges he was intoxicated at the time. He was allegedly threatening his girlfriend. Noteworthy in that incident, his mother said officials first took him to the hospital for a couple days to be stabilized, then booked him into jail.
That was a period when she saw great improvement and potential. She said her son got the sleep he desperately needed — in the same place, night after night — “away from the people, places and things” that sustained his addiction. She said he gained some structure by working in the kitchen. During visits, she said, he seemed to be open to the idea of taking medication to manage opioid dependency.
“Jail gave him that space so we, as a family, had that chance to intervene,” said Sarah. “It was the most progress I had seen him make.”
She said he was in jail for about three months, until the helped get him released in January. She said she didn’t want that to happen but allowed him to use her home as an address. She said he violated the terms of his release and even cut off his ankle monitor, which didn’t spur revocation.
Five days after a court date in mid-April, Sarah wrote to a supervisor in the Ƶ County prosecuting attorney’s office who shared her concerns with a judge.
“Kaden has engaged in several dangerous and concerning behaviors that I fully believe compromise the safety and security of himself, his family, and his named victim in his currently open case,” Sarah wrote, according to a record of the email chain. “Kaden has sent videos of himself holding and shooting a gun and has texted her messages threatening her life.
“She reports having seen him driving by her home several times in the evening wearing a ski mask. This has been reported to the Crestwood Police Department, who has done nothing to offer protections. I also located a loaded gun in his room the day of his court hearing, and he was asked not to return to my residence.”
She went on to write that her son “is mentally ill, armed, dangerous, and likely delusional.” She pleaded that a warrant be issued “so that Kaden can be detained, and threats can be eliminated.”
“I am not sure what will help him moving forward, but his current state is exceptionally alarming and I will keep asking for help, as I refuse to sit by and watch something tragic unfold,” she wrote.
On Monday, May 13, Kaden came back to his mother’s residence to wish her a belated happy Mother’s Day. She said the visit initially went well. Then his behavior changed for the worse. Offering support for “any healthy decision he would make,” she said she told him that he was on a path to two destinations: jail or death.
She told him to leave. She then called Edwardsville police, hoping they’d arrest him. A dispatcher verified that a Ƶ County warrant existed for Kaden but that the “physical document” was missing, according to a call for service report. Edwardsville dispatch noted that a county records sergeant could “attempt to fix the problem” the following day when courts were open.
Kaden wasn’t arrested that night. After pacing outside, a ride finally came for him.
Two days later, he called his mother, told her that he’d arrived at one of the destinations: A Richmond Heights holding cell. Kaden and another man, who were allegedly checking for unlocked cars, were accused of trespassing.
His mother was pleased.
“Thank God, he’s been arrested,” she recalled thinking. “He’s going to jail, and we can sleep tonight. At least we know he’s safe.”
A Richmond Heights police search of records confirmed that Kaden had felony gun warrants in Ƶ County. Richmond Heights records also confirm that he was booked at headquarters for “Trespassing and Fugitive charges.” Richmond Heights records also say Kaden was released on summons for the trespassing and “held awaiting pick-up” by Ƶ County.
But Kaden didn’t make it to jail.
Rather than take him to the hospital to be stabilized this time around, Sarah said Richmond Heights told her that they released him because he was “under the influence and not medically fit to be detained.”
“They failed to protect and serve like they have plastered over their car,” she said. “No wonder we are a community at risk.”
Richmond Heights didn’t return a call to the Post-Dispatch requesting comment about the matter.
The last time Sarah said she spoke to Kaden was around 8 p.m. on May 16, the night that he died. She said she wasn’t confrontational. She said she told him that she wanted to help him when he’s ready. She said they agreed to go out for dinner for his birthday coming up in two days.
She said she followed up by text, saying she loved him. She sent him a photo of him and his siblings, saying she wished his life was simpler, like when he was much younger.
She said he responded, wishing the same.
Eight hours later, at 4:30 a.m., the county coroner drove into the mother’s nice neighborhood and knocked on her door in the 100 block of Friars Lane.
“I hear people talk about getting justice, and over the past several days I really reflected on what that looks like for Kaden and for our family,” Sarah said during her son’s eulogy. “I want answers, but the reality is that reacting to a set of circumstances that resulted in Kaden’s death isn’t going to change what we have to live with moving forward.”
Changing responses to people in crisis, at multiple levels of the safety net, she said, “could prevent this from happening to another family.”
Originally published Saturday, June 1.