Sister of woman in I-94 death: ‘She had so much pain’

MOORHEAD – Kristi Garden’s lifetime of private mental health struggles

came to a sudden public end Saturday night when she apparently jumped

from the 34th Street over-pass here and was struck by a westbound

vehicle on Interstate 94.

Just hours earlier, the 55-year-old Moorhead woman was released from a

psy-chiatric ward where she had been for the past three-and-a-half

weeks, say her sister and longtime live-in boyfriend.

Younger sister Julie Garden-Robinson said Garden dealt with mental

health issues since she was 19, relying on medications and occasional

hospitaliza-tion to get better. But it was something she didn’t talk

about with most of her friends and family, espe-cially the residents

of Gary, Minn., where they grew up.

“In fact, even my kids didn’t know, so this was just a shocking thing

for them,” Garden-Robinson said. “She didn’t want anyone to know that

she had depression and anxiety other than the ones she chose to tell,

and the fact that this became so public is what is just shocking to

me.”

She said her sister was “enormously talented” and, for the most part,

kept her mental health struggles in the background. She received a

master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Texas at

Austin, landing roles with an opera company as a soprano and earning a

spot as a soloist with a sympho-ny while performing in Austin and

Dallas.

Since moving to the Far-go-Moorhead community in 1999, she had worked

at several public schools in Fargo as a substitute music teacher.

But Garden-Robinson said the disease “would get a grip on her” from

time to time. The most recent struggle started in July, when she

followed her doctor’s advice and went off antidepressants.

She said her sister was scheduled to go in for a checkup with the

doctor Sept. 19. But things took a turn for the worse before that

appointment and, on Sept. 11, Garden-Robinson brought her to an

emer-gency room because she was concerned about her condition.

Garden-Robinson said it seemed that her sister was determined to get

back to the healthy, happy person who loved to spend time with her

nieces and neph-ew and enjoyed fashion, decorating and the beauti-ful

things of life.

“She kept saying, ‘I’m going to get better,’” she said. “All along,

she said, ‘I’m going to fight this; I’m going to get better.’”

Trying to get better

Garden was hospitalized and put on new medica-tions to try to get her

prob-lems under control, said boyfriend Mel Fredricksen.

Fredricksen said it was clear to him that his girl-friend, who he met

12 years ago and lived with in a house on 33rd Street South in

Moorhead for the past four years, wasn’t ready to be released. He said

he often took her out of the hospital for a few hours at a time to go

shopping or get dinner, but she complained about not being able to

sleep, and her new medications hadn’t fully taken effect.

“It’s really a shame what the poor girl went through,” he said.

The Forum is choosing to not name Garden’s medical provider because it

cannot at this time substantiate the family’s version of events. When

contacted by The Forum, a top executive for the medical provider said

the specifics of a pa-tient’s case can’t be dis-cussed because of

privacy laws, but mental health issues are “incredibly complex.”

Garden-Robinson said doctors were able to get Garden’s panic attacks

under control, even if she said she felt “so drugged I can’t think.”

Garden made appointments for this week to see a new doctor and

therapist and on Saturday she was released after about three and a

half weeks of hospitalization, her sister said.

But Fredricksen said he was worried that it was too soon.

Garden-Robinson said she and her husband on Saturday picked up Garden

at the hospital, taking her to the house she shared with Fredricksen

at about 1:30 p.m. and staying with her until they went home around

7:15 p.m.

Fredricksen said Garden told him she was feeling “tense” and wanted to

go for a quick walk to calm down. He said that wasn’t out of the

ordinary – she liked to go for evening walks near their south Moorhead

home, often taking their dachshund Lilly.

He insisted that she take a cellphone and his heavy-duty flashlight,

just in case something happened, and told her he would call in a few

minutes.

“She said, ‘I should be fine,’” he said.

Garden left around 7:30 p.m., and Fredricksen later tried to call but

she didn’t answer. That’s when he saw the lights of an ambu-lance pass

by their home, and he tried to call two more times before getting in

his truck to look for her.

But instead of finding his girlfriend, he noticed the westbound

off-ramp of I-94 was closed and saw an ambulance and squad cars on the

interstate.

“I had a gut feeling then that there was something seriously going on,” he said.

Minnesota State Patrol investigator Rod Eischens said authorities

received a report of somebody on 34th Street running in and out of

traffic around 8:20 p.m. A caller soon reported that there had been a

collision between a pedestrian and a vehicle on the interstate below

that overpass, he said, but no eyewitnesses have come forward to say

they saw Garden either jump or fall from the over-pass.

The Minnesota State Pa-trol is still investigating the incident, and

an autop-sy is being done.

Fredricksen said he called the Moorhead Police Department when he saw

what was going on, de-scribing Garden to officers to see if she

matched the description of the pedestri-an who had been struck by an

SUV driven by Benja-min R. Deraas, 25, of Fargo.

“But then it was kind of a waiting game,” he said.

About 30 minutes later, two Minnesota State Patrol troopers showed up

at his door to confirm Garden had died in the accident.

Overcoming the stigma

Fredricksen said Garden gave no warning that she was suicidal that night.

Garden-Robinson said her family, as well as her brother Craig who

lives in Burnsville, Minn., are still in “total shock” about what

happened on Saturday night.

“I never in a million years would have expected this,” she said. “This

is the shock of my life. She had so much pain, and I think she felt

that medical help just wasn’t available to her.”

Still, Garden-Robinson said sharing her sister’s struggles with mental

illness could prompt more discussion on the issue and help families

avoid this type of tragedy.

“I hope that her legacy can be that it’s OK to talk about mental

illness the way we talk about cancer and heart disease,” she said.

“There’s still a stig-ma, and it’s unfortunate.”

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