On August 5, Kris started the abortion regimen. Over the approximately 10 days Kris was taking the tea, she went about her business, socializing with friends and family. Kris experienced abdominal pain and cramping, which she took as signs that the abortion was going as planned. Neither Kris nor her friend who recommended the tea thought anything was wrong at first.
The only person who was concerned was her mother, Embee. The two attended a movie together on August 7, and Kris told her mother about the pregnancy and about her herbalist plans. Embee, who'd suffered through an ectopic pregnancy herself, saw something familiar in the way Kris was holding her side from pain. She asked Kris if she was sure that the pregnancy was normal, not ectopic, but her daughter evaded the question.
Instead, Kris told her mother that the abortion should be complete on the 9th, and that she'd call then. But Kris continued to experience problems and continued to take the abortion concoction.
By Friday, August 12, Kris had given up on her herbal abortion plan. Embee and a friend offered to make arrangements and pay for her to have the abortion done by a doctor on the 13th. But when one of Kris's many housemates came home at 7:30 on Friday evening, she found Kris pale and feverish, and learned that she'd been vomiting. She continued to suffer chills, cramps, and vomiting for the next six hours.
Her condition continued to deteriorate. She passed out at around 11 p.m. Her friends continued to try to care for her, placing her in a cold bath at about 2 a.m Saturday to try to address her feverish sweating. But Kris just went into a seizure, so her friends carried her to the kitchen. One of them noticed that she wasn't breathing and started screaming. One friend called for an ambulance while another attempted to revive Kris.
The ambulance crew arrived at 2:27 a.m transported her to a hospital, where staff tried to stabilize her.
Her friends told staff about the abortion, and even brought the bottles of pennyroyal and black cohosh. The staff had no idea what effects the herbs might be having on Kris, and called poison experts.
Kris was in shock and suffering from disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. "She was bleeding from everywhere," said a doctor who treated her.
Doctors suspected an ectopic pregnancy, but feared doing exploratory surgery because Kris's condition was so fragile. They pumped her with IV fluids and made other attempts to stabilize her. In desperation, the doctors proceeded with surgery, finding an unruptured right tubal pregnancy that was bleeding from the end of the fallopian tube. The doctors removed the pregnancy and "significant quantity of old blood which was malodorous."
Even though the tube hadn't ruptured, it appeared that the effect of the pennyroyal on Kris's liver had caused the clotting problems that had led to her excessive internal bleeding.
After surgery, Kris showed no signs of responsiveness. She was declared brain dead on Sunday. Friends and family gathered at the hospital. Half an hour later, at 4:51 p.m., Kris was declared dead.
Testing on samples of Kris' liver showed signs of damage associated with one of the substances, pulegone, contained in pennyroyal. Not enough was known of the effects of pulegone on the liver to say for sure what effect the damage had on Kris or what role it played in her death.
She faced her pregnancy before legal abortion became available.
She was poor and couldn't afford an safe, legal abortion.
Kris was afraid her father would learn of the pregnancy and get violent, and her state had a law that required that both parents be notified if an underage girl sought an abortion.
Kris had already undergone a clinic abortion, found the process painful, and felt like she'd been treated disrespectfully.
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