Drugs Found in Girls Lying Unconscious in Cemetery

Two teen-age girls found lying in a cemetery were unconscious and in critical condition in a hospital today, officials said.

Preliminary tests by doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Providence indicated the presence of drugs in the girls’ systems. But officials would not say what the drugs were except that they were not narcotics.

Little else was known about how the girls ended up in the cemetery.

Gina Palazzo, 14, and Amber Houghton, 13, both of Warwick, were found Monday afternoon in Pawtuxet Cemetery by a nurse placing flowers on her husband’s gravestone, police said.

The girls, fully clothed and wearing heavy winter coats, were lying next to each other amid the gravestones, and the nurse said they appeared to be suffering from hypothermia.

The teen-agers were taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where they were listed in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

“We found no signs of any force at the scene,” police Sgt. Thomas Wilson said.

Both had boarded a school bus at different stops Monday morning, Wilson said, but “neither of them made it to school.”