Cops: Embalming Fluid Fueled Shooting

Aug. 15 -- After 10 days of smoking embalming fluid-laced marijuana, Davon Jackson snapped, killing a man and a child in a paranoid rampage that police ended by shooting Jackson to death in an armed confrontation, Seattle police said.

A 6-year-old girl who Jackson allegedly pistol whipped was listed in serious condition with a skull fracture.

Police said that Jackson, 20, was high on "sherm," a marijuana cigarette soaked in embalming fluid, when he went to visit his friend, Dante Coleman at Coleman's apartment Monday night.

According to police, witnesses said Jackson had become paranoid and prone to violence after smoking the increasingly popular drug for 10 days.

"We have statements from two individuals about Mr. Jackson that he was smoking over the last 10 days an illegal substance called sherm," Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said Tuesday. "Sherm is a formaldehyde-based substance that is placed either on cigarettes or marijuana and has an effect of, according to drug information, of creating both paranoia and extreme anger. We also know that people have given us information that he had reacted violently or come off on some people within the last several weeks."

According to police, that was what happened Monday night in Coleman's apartment in south Seattle. A fight broke out between the two men, and before it was over, Coleman, 20, was dead of gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

The toddler, 23-month-old TreVieon Spreul was beaten so badly that police at first assumed that he had been shot, too — reports that angered neighbors, who assumed the child had been caught in a crossfire between police and Jackson.

"I had reported last night that I believed the 2-year-old had been shot, but in fact the blunt trauma force had created such a horrific crime scene within the apartment, you can see from the amount of blood on the firearm, it was a difficult crime scene for everyone," Kerlikowske said. "It was very difficult to determine exactly what had occurred. A lot of our veteran officers were extremely horrified by what they saw that night, and will live with that for a long time."