The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

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McDaniel receives life in prison for student’s death

Meaghan Bosch’s body was found three days after she went missing near a construction site on the outskirts of Waco, Texas in May 2007. The cause of death was ultimately ruled as a drug overdose.

As Bosch’s family and friends searched for the missing student, Bosch, 21, was nearly comatose in James McDaniel’s apartment, barely breathing. Despite two unidentified men wanting to take Bosch to the emergency room, McDaniel brandished a gun, forbidding the men from providing help to the dying student.

It took more than two years, but McDaniel will finally pay for the injustice served to Bosch and her family and friends.

It wasn’t James selling drugs to Meaghan, or even “distributing” drugs to her that caused her death,” Lynn Bosch, Meaghan’s mother, said in an e-mail interview. “It was James literally administering these drugs to her, which were either hidden, or given to her while she was a ‘vulnerable victim,’ in the court’s words.”

Initial reports said Bosch had overdosed on a combination of cocaine, oxycodone and methamphetamine, but her mother wants the public to know the truth.

In Lynn’s e-mail, she said her daughter did not abuse drugs, and “had never been known to take these other drugs.” Instead, Meaghan was given cocaine, without knowing it, which also contained oxycodone.

On Oct. 29, 2009 McDaniel, 49, was sentenced to life in prison for supplying the fatal drugs to Bosch and dumping her body in a portable toilet near Waco.

Despite McDaniel’s defense, the judge ruled the government had “overwhelming evidence against him,” according to The Dallas Morning News.

McDaniel was paroled from state custody in 2001 after serving a 22-year sentence for killing a former Dallas police officer. McDaniel’s parole was revoked last year, but he will be up for it again in 2014, when he will, according to The Dallas Morning News, be moved to federal prison.

With approximately 200 incidents of violence, including inciting a riot while in a Texas prison and stabbing and assaulting guards on duty, many question why McDaniel was eligible for parole.

While McDaniel admitted to killing Dallas police officer James Horan when he was 18, he did not confess to killing an 8-year-old boy whose body was found in the closet of an Illinois motel room he was living in.

“What I would like to say to both the students of SMU and SMU itself is even though James McDaniel is now put away for life, please be careful as to who walks among you,” Lynn said. “This was a very capable con man and there are many more out there who will also view SMU students as easy and affluent targets to prey upon.”

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