Injured teen facing life-threatening surgery

Tara Rader tries not to look into the mirror.

Instead of experimenting with makeup and calling friends on the telephone, the 13-year-old Spokane girl is waiting for doctors to reconstruct her once beautiful face.

Before that can happen, Tara faces a potential life-threatening surgery to remove a bullet that struck her between the eyes May 9 and lodged in her brain, her mother Lorein Rader said Friday.

Doctors have delayed that procedure until swelling subsides. In the meantime, the girl whose mother says she’s “ornery” is testing the limits of the staff at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

“She’s tired of being in that hospital,” her mother, Lorein Rader said. “She wants out.”

But Tara will come back to Spokane to a home life that is anything but stable.

Prior to the shooting, Tara was living as a runaway. She stayed for a time with a teenage boy, called family friends for shelter, and — according to court documents — stole marijuana from her father so she could sell the drugs to live on the street.

“Tara is a good girl who is lost. She needs guidance,” said David D. Smith, 47, who is Lorein Rader’s former boyfriend. “She’s a normal teenager. She makes poor decisions sometimes, just like all teenagers do. Unfortunately, that was really a bad one.”

Tara was partying May 9 with two other teenager boys at the home of 20-year-old Reza Abghari, at 707 E. Kiernan. According to Spokane Police, the group was playing video games and drinking vodka that Abghari had provided.

One of the boys brought his father’s .22 caliber pistol to the party. Abghari told police that he ejected what he thought were all the bullets out of the gun before he pointed it at one of the boys.

After the boy got angry, Abghari pointed the gun at Tara. From a distance of about 12 to 15 inches, he pulled the trigger. The bullet struck Tara right between the eyes.

Lorein Rader said her daughter must undergo reconstructive surgery to rebuild her upper nasal passages and cheek. Her right eye remains swollen shut.

“We haven’t told her that she probably lost all of her sight out if it,” Rader said. “We give her bits and pieces. We get over one hurdle at a time.”

Tara avoids mirrors. “She tries not to look,” Rader said. “She doesn’t like what she sees.”

Last Sunday, Tara was moved from Harborview’s intensive care unit to her own room. Nurses keep a wrist alarm on Tara that lets them know when she moves anywhere on the hospital floor, Rader said.

Each day Tara improves. She is talking, walking and her memory is coming back, Lorein Rader said.

“I’m amazed. I’m totally shocked” at her recovery, the mother said. “Her short-term memory is kind of shot. She can’t remember things that happened yesterday.”

Tara, who declined a telephone interview Friday, remembers several things that happened the night of the shooting, Lorein Rader said.

“I’ve been asking her questions about it,” Rader said. “She doesn’t remember that exact moment. She hasn’t said if it was an accident or on purpose.”

Asked if Abghari was her boyfriend, Tara told her mother, “No. Yuck.” Court documents say otherwise.

Tara’s father, 44-year-old James Rader, went to visit Tara in the hospital last weekend. At the same time, Spokane Police detectives were searching his home at 1608 E. Bridgeport in Spokane, after receiving information from a confidential informant.

“The CI stated that Rader is very upset about the shooting and threatened retaliation of some kind,” Detective Kip Hollenbeck wrote in his report. “The CI stated that Tara was a runaway.

“The CI further stated that three weeks ago, Tara went to her father’s residence … cut off the tops of all her father’s marijuana plants. Tara also reportedly stole a large amount of money,” Hollenbeck wrote. “The CI stated that Tara has been selling the marijuana on the street for money to live on.”

The search of Rader’s home on May 14 netted electrical equipment, a bag of “stems,” grow lights, a “High Times” magazine and several other items.

Rader hasn’t been charged in connection with that search warrant. But he faces a June 12 trial for a previous charge of manufacturing a controlled substance from a search of the same house on March 21, 2002.

James Rader could not be reached for comment. But his attorney, Richard Scott Hill, said he will contest the latest search warrant. “You can buy those things at a police auction,” Hill said of the seized items. “We’ll take a very hard look at the probable cause” report.

James and Lorein Rader divorced in May of 1999.

Soon after, Lorein started dating David D. Smith, who moved in with her and Tara in 2000, he said.

He would not discuss why he obtained a civil anti-harassment protection order against Lorein Rader. But court documents indicate that she violated that order on March 2 and assaulted him on March 3, 2002. Smith declined to prosecute both cases.

But court records show that Lorein Rader was found guilty of violating the protection order on June 12, 2002, after a third violation.

Asked about those incidents, she said: “He stole my stuff and said I could come get it and called the cops on me. He still has my stuff to this day.”

Smith said he moved out of the home with Lorein and Tara in 2002.

“I love Tara just like a daughter,” Smith said. “At times they were the perfect mother and daughter. But her mom has a bad temper. She (Tara) has a bad temper as a result of growing up in it.”

Lorein Rader, who works at night for a janitorial service, acknowledged that she took a baseball bat to her 23-year-old son’s car on July 14, 2002, after an argument over money. She was arrested on a charge of second-degree malicious mischief in connection with that incident.

Just prior to her running away, Tara was stopped by Spokane Police for joy riding in her mother’s van.

Officers took Tara to Smith’s house and she stayed the night. The next day, officers came and took Tara, saying that Lorein Rader had told police that she didn’t want Smith around her daughter.

About six weeks ago, Tara called Smith looking for a place to stay, he said.

“She told me her mother had kicked her out. I told (Tara) I was sorry, but I couldn’t do anything because I could be arrested for harboring a runaway,” Smith said.

Lorein Rader said she and Tara got into an argument after Tara took the van. But she maintains that her daughter left on her own.

Smith said he hadn’t heard from Tara until the shooting.

“I fell apart,” he said. “Tara is a tough kid. And she’s determined. But I don’t think she knows how bad a condition she’s in.”

Smith said he fears that Tara will come home from Seattle to find the same, destructive environment.

“She’s going to be facing a ton. She won’t be the same beautiful girl when she looks in the mirror,” Smith said. “It will be mentally tough on her.”

Lorein Rader said she never really asked Tara why she ran away.

“I’m worried about the big stuff,” she said, referring to Tara’s medical condition. “I can wring her neck later.”

Asked what kind of home Tara is coming home to, Rader answered by hanging up her phone.