Amanda was a just a junkie.

She was kidnapped and held in Texas.

She was drugged with horse tranquilizers and then dumped in the lake.

None of that is true, Shannon Stroud said while in tears about her 22-year-old stepdaughter.

"She was a beautiful, bright, talented girl and not a piece of trash to be dumped and forgotten," Shannon said.

Amanda Stroud, 22, was last seen Jan. 9 in the Pineville area where she was living. On Jan. 26, a fisherman spotted her body floating in Kincaid Lake. There were no signs of trauma on the woman's clothed body.

Although Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office investigators and autopsy results confirm that crime was not a factor in Amanda's death, the family is not at peace.

"What happened?" Ronnie Stroud asks.
The autopsy determined that Amanda died of acute methamphetamine intoxication -- an overdose of the stimulant drug known as speed. But her family vows the young woman -- who had gone down a few troubled paths -- was getting her life together and was not using drugs.
"She wanted to do something with children, becoming a pediatrician is what she was talking about," Amanda's older brother, Eric Ryder, said. "She was getting her life back together and had plans to go back to school soon. She was 100 percent clean and had been going to classes, meeting her probation officer and testing clean. The way she died, that wasn't her."

Detective Stephen Phillips said although they aren't investigating Amanda's death as a homicide, the case is being investigated.

"Every lead we get we are following up on," he said. "We want to know how she got into the water and who put her there."

The family is hoping an offer of a cash reward will encourage someone to come forward with information. Shannon said the family hopes that if the incentive of cash for information leading to an arrest and conviction isn't enough, then maybe the type of person Amanda was will.