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'No matter how good a day we have now, we know the sadness is also there'

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Ben Mackenzie of Rochester leaves the courtroom after he was sentenced to 12-24 years in prison in the OD death of Bryanna Frechette, inset. (Rochester Voice photo; inset, courtesy)

DOVER - John and Melinda Frechette talked of a daughter who was "our only child, trusting and full of life, always smiling."

The family of 22-year-old Ben Mackenzie spoke of a young man who'd dropped out of high school, came from a household where addiction was a lifestyle and had followed the path of least resistance into a life of selling drugs to make a living and feed his own habit.

On Dec. 12, Bryanna Frechette and Mackenzie intersected a final time when Mackenzie supplied her with a dose of fentanyl that killed the 19-year-old Spaulding graduate and lover of dogs, volleyball and traveling with her parents.

On Monday Mackenzie, formerly of South Main Street, Rochester, was given the state-recommended sentence of 12-24 years behind bars for supplying the fentanyl that killed John and Melinda Frechette's little girl. He faced up to life.

The havoc this has wreaked on the Frechette family is staggering.

"Not a day goes by we don't ask ourselves how this happened," said an emotional John Frechette. "No matter how good a day we have now, we know the sadness is also there."

On Dec. 12, 2016, Mackenzie went to Lawrence to buy 20 grams of fentanyl for $650, Deputy County Attorney Tim Sullivan said in his sentencing arguments.

"He knew the dangers," Sullivan noted, "but this was his living; he knew he could make money selling it."

One of those who bought some of the fentanyl was Bryanna, a bubbly 19-year-old who loved her two dogs, Shiloh, s Shetland sheep dog and Taz, a long-haired Chihuahua, and had been working at the Rochester Manor as a dietary aide.

Her loss has left a gaping hole in her mother's heart.

"Every day I try to find a reason to get up," said Melinda Frechette. "Everything reminds me of Bryanna."

Mackenzie, who sold the fentanyl to Bryanna while on a suspended sentence and probation, and continued to sell drugs after her death, could easily be among the departed, too.

Defense counsel Stephen Jeffco said his client was more addict than profiteer, noting that he had overdosed several times, including once in the bathroom of the Knight Street Cumberland Farms where he'd gone to get high again shortly after Frisbie Emergency Department workers used Narcan to treat him for an earlier overdose.

Jeffco argued that more than jail or prison, Mackenzie needed treatment for the disease of addiction.

Mackenzie's family members agreed, saying in statements to the court that almost the entire Mackenzie family were addicts, including several who had died from drugs and alcohol abuse.

"We are addicts," said Zacchary Mackenzie, who was indicted along with his brother in March 2017 in a fentanyl trafficking case dating back to August 2016, four months before Bryanna Frechette's fatal overdose.

Ben Mackenzie was indicted in her death in October 2017.

After a four-day trial in January, it took a jury just a few hours to find Ben Mackenzie guilty for supply a drug, death resulting.

If Mackenzie successfully completes a drug programs in prison he can shave two years off the minimum sentence.

Much of the sentencing arguments centered on a debate between Sullivan and Jeffco over how much a deterrent this would be to drug traffickers.

"These addicts have no ability to escape the drug's stranglehold," Jeffco said, arguing a stiff sentence does not keep them from trafficking to feed their addiction.

But Sullivan likened it to an alcoholic who doesn't intend to kill someone when they get behind the wheel, but they often do.

"Actions have consequences," he noted.

Meanwhile, Melinda Frechette, shaking in her grief, spoke eloquently of her love for her only child, then spoke directly to Ben Mackenzie across the courtroom.

"You get a second chance, but it wasn't in the cards for her," she said. "I hope you take this time and take responsibility for your actions."

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