This article
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/03/2c-e_timothy_lamere_third_degree_murder.php
mentions a couple of telling things... "According to police, 21-year-old Lamere arrived at a spring break party in Blaine and began offering "2C-I" to the guests, saying it was a hallucinogen.
He poured out the grayish powder on a living room table, cut a few lines, and snorted one." Yikes! I can't imagine just laying out a big ol pile of 2C-E & cutting out lines. It sounds like this guy had no idea what he was doing.
Also, "The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension analyzed the gray powder found in Lamere's pocket and determined it was
8.9 grams of 2C-E. He was arrested on Friday." 8.9
grams were left. That's a lot of 2C-E... I wonder how much he had to start with? 20 grams? That would be about 1 gram snorted per person! I would think that after the first guy railed his line, he'd be in so much pain that no one would want to repeat his action.
So we have a bunch of kids drinking and taking who-knows-what-else, then a guy comes in & gives them massive doses of 2C-E.
Another thought - I believe tobacco acts as an MAOI. What if they had been smoking a lot, or doing hookahs? Maybe they had been trying botanicals such as Syrian Rue, or messing with Zoloft or Prozac? Had they been doing MDMA earlier in the day? And of course there's the possibility that the 2C-E was from a bad synth or contained impurities...
There's way too many variables to really make any good guess, other than the facts of: 1) inexperience & lack of proper research, and 2) unmeasured dosing, especially in a party atmosphere. It's a shame and a waste...