GLEN LYON, Luzerne County — The suspected overdose death of a Wilkes-Barre woman prompted a rescue mission that made national headlines last week when three Lehigh Valley region residents tried to enter New York City with an arsenal of weapons.
Mandy Powell, 38, of Glen Lyon, Luzerne County, confirmed her daughter, Sierra Schmitt, 20, died June 20 in Brooklyn, prompting the bizarre attempt at vigilante justice.
Powell praised Zionsville gun range owner John Cramsey, 50; Dean Smith, 53, of Whitehall Township; and Kimberly Arendt, 29, of Lehighton, saluting them for trying to save a 17-year-old Wilkes-Barre girl who found Schmitt dead and then sent panicked messages to those close to her, including Arendt.
“Kudos to them that they tried to save these girls,” Powell said. “There should be more people like that out there. They are heroes, not convicts. If I ever get to see them or meet them, I’d thank them.”
Cramsey, Smith and Arendt are in a New Jersey prison waiting for a grand jury to hear evidence and approve charges against them. No date has been set for that proceeding.
Powell wishes they had arrived sooner to try to save her troubled daughter, who told local investigators during an arrest last year that she was a Brooklyn prostitute controlled by a pimp.
The press office for the New York City Police Department confirmed Schmitt was pronounced dead at 4:53 p.m. June 20 at a private residence in Brooklyn’s Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Someone called 911 and “stated she discovered the victim unconscious and unresponsive lying face down on a mattress in her bedroom,” a narrative of the incident says.
Authorities said a 16-year-old girl sent text messages to Arendt, a former camp counselor, about Schmitt’s death and that emboldened Cramsey, Smith and Arendt to try to rescue her in a vehicle loaded with weapons.
The trio were arrested in the early morning hours June 21 on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel in a spectacle that made news around the world.
Shortly before the trio was stopped, Cramsey posted on Facebook that they were en route to Brooklyn to save a teenage girl.
“This young lady from Wilkes Barre is scared and wants to come home. Last night she woke to find her friends body next to her in the same bed were her friend died of another heroin overdose,” Cramsey wrote.
The cause and manner of Schmitt’s death remain under investigation, said Julie Bolcer, spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner’s office.
Schmitt’s social media pages glorify violence and drugs, including one page on which she refers to herself as “Paris,” the name she used last year when she was arrested for prostitution at a Wilkes-Barre Township hotel.
One of her Facebook pages has photos of her making various hand gestures and sporting blue bandannas, which various local law enforcement officials said is the trademark of the Crips gang.
Powell said she had warned her daughter about her lifestyle.
“She always lived life on the edge. I warned her. I told her, ‘Everybody is not her friend,’ ” Powell said of her only child.
Powell said she tried her best to give Schmitt a decent life, but she went down the wrong path.
Schmitt got pregnant at age 14 with twin boys. Child welfare officials took custody of them within months and they were adopted.
She spent time in juvenile detention and eventually dropped out of school. As a teenager, Schmitt started visiting Brooklyn, which became like a second home.
Powell said she last spoke to her daughter on the phone a day before she died.
In one of her final social media posts, Schmitt uploaded a photo containing the phrase, “At this point in my life, I catch one bad vibe, I’m out.”
Some friends of Schmitt hope New York City detectives thoroughly investigate the death.
Close friend Tatyana Moore, 19, of Wilkes-Barre, started the hashtag #justiceforsierra on social media.
“Sierra was much more than what people saw or what they thought of her. She was really a good person, with a good heart. She could light up a whole room with her smile and laugh,” Moore said. “Being with her made me happy, made me feel like Sierra was one of the only people I could be myself around. She made you comfortable being near her. You had to love her. I know I did. She was a wonderful friend and she made me grow as a person.”
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