barbara walsh Archives - Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina

Town hall meeting to educate public on dangers of fentanyl

A man holds a poster showing Wilson County residents who have died as a result of fentanyl. Families shared their stories outside the Wilson County Courthouse in September to bring awareness to the dangers of the drug. Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina will hold a town hall meeting in Wilson on Feb. 1 at the Foundation YMCA of Wilson. *Drew C. Wilson | Times file photo*

Event organizers are sounding the alarm on the fentanyl crisis that continues to claim lives. The Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina will hold a town hall meeting in Wilson from 2 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 1, at Foundation YMCA of Wilson at 233 Nash St.

The purpose of the event, organizers say, is to spark public safety conversations about the dangers of illicit fentanyl, particularly when it’s found in counterfeit pressed pills like Adderall, Xanax and Percocet.

Organizers will also be distributing naloxone, which goes by the brand name Narcan, and train those attending on how to administer the lifesaving antidote. Local families will also share their heart-wrenching stories of how their loved ones have died from fentanyl poisonings. The event is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

ADDRESSING THE ISSUE

Barb Walsh, founder of Fentanyl Victims Network, has been working with Wilson families who are reeling from the loss of their own children who have died as a result of unintentional fentanyl deaths. The hope, she said, is to bring awareness to a problem that is plaguing the country, the state and Wilson.

“This is a public safety problem we want to address,” Walsh said.

Walsh is holding several town halls throughout the state.

“I chose Wilson because there is a pocket of very active families,” Walsh said. “We have two death by distribution cases going on (in the court system).

Local elected officials, public health professionals, advocates, parents of fentanyl victims, first responders and representatives from the Wilson County Substance Prevention Coalition and the Wilson County district attorney’s office will be in attendance at the Feb. 1 town hall meeting. Local law enforcement members have also been invited, organizers said.

“I think it’s important for people to see these numbers and realize how many people are dying,” said Lisa Bennett, co-organizer of the event. Bennett lost her son, 22-year-old Mason Bennett, in February 2023. He died after taking what he believed was a Percocet, a prescription painkiller, but it was laced with fentanyl, she has said. Since her son’s death, Bennett has been working with Walsh and her nonprofit.

Walsh said 18,457 people in North Carolina have died as a result of fentanyl over a 10-year period.

From 2013 to October 2023, there have been 138 fentanyl deaths in Wilson County alone, according to state data Walsh has compiled.

SOUNDING THE ALARM

Walsh founded the Raleigh-based nonprofit after her daughter, Sophia Walsh, died from fentanyl poisoning in August 2021. Walsh’s daughter drank what she thought was a bottled water from someone’s refrigerator.

Unbeknownst to her, it contained diluted fentanyl. Sophia died, and no one called 911 until 10 hours later, Walsh said. No one was charged.

“We didn’t know what she died from until five months later,” Walsh said.

After her daughter’s death, Walsh channeled her grief into research, advocacy and justice for other victims. Walsh has worked across the state to bring awareness to the dangers of fentanyl and has worked with families to demand justice in their cases by utilizing state law and getting those responsible charged.

‘IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILD’

Walsh said there’s a misconception about fentanyl deaths. She said not all deaths are the result of someone in active addiction. Some people are simply experimenting.

Seven out of 10 “street” pressed copycat pills contain lethal fentanyl additives, according to officials.

Fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is a synthetic opioid that can be lethal even in small doses.

“It could happen to your child,” Walsh said. “The pressed pills are the culprit.”

Organizers hope to educate families and encourage parents to talk with their children about the dangers that are out there.

“If we can stop just one family from having to go through this it will be worth it,” Bennett said.

Bennett said more lives will be saved if more people are armed with Narcan.

“They cannot save themselves,” Walsh said. “Someone in the community will have to save them.”

For more information about Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina visit www.fentvic.org.

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WRDC Community Matters January 11, 2025

On Saturday January 11, 2025 WRDC Community Matters aired a special episode where Barb Walsh, Michelle Murdock, and Betsy Moore from Wake County shared their stories.

Barb Walsh, Executive Director of Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, fights to save lives and get justice for those killed by fentanyl poisoning. Joining Barb in the fight are Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina members Michelle Murdock and Betsy Ballard Moore.

There are two episodes being aired, Part 1 is airing January 11th, Part 2 will air one week later, January 18.

On a mission to prosecute fentanyl dealers, Union County opens its own autopsy center

Read the original article on the Charlotte Observer website.

When autopsy backlogs in North Carolina threatened Union County officers’ ability to prosecute drug overdose cases, they opened their own center to continue their yearslong drug purge amid state delays.

A temporary autopsy center that opened in the bottom of a Monroe hospital Dec. 17 is the ninth regional center in the state. It’s also one county’s latest attempt to combat two issues plaguing the state: drug deaths and autopsy delays.

The North Carolina General Assembly since its 2023 session has given Union County $22 million to open the South Piedmont Regional Autopsy Center under oversight from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The county soon hopes find a permanent building to better host eight more counties and get the proper accreditation to help with the toxicology reports backlog, too.

Autopsy and toxicology backlogs have been caused by increasing overdose deaths and too few forensic pathologists, a Charlotte Observer investigation revealed last year. They leave grieving families and investigating law enforcement waiting too long for answers.

For Union County, those delays were made worse when the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner moved Union County’s autopsies from Mecklenburg County — less than an hour away — to Wake County — about three hours away — in 2022.

The switch was supposed to help with backlogs, but transportation time coupled with the Raleigh center’s staffing shortages created more delays, said Tony Underwood, the chief deputy of operations with the Union County Sheriff’s Office.

Each Raleigh pathologist, the Observer previously reported, completes, on average, 557 autopsies each year. That’s more than twice the number recommended by a national accrediting group, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley previously told the Observer.

“Bottom line, plain and simple, the medical examination system is in crisis,” Kinsley said.

The Raleigh autopsy center told Underwood it does not “routinely do full autopsies in suspected drug overdose cases,” he said in an interview with the Observer.

Mecklenburg’s center did, Underwood said.

The change became a problem for Union County law enforcement.

The sheriff’s office and Union District Attorney Trey Robison were charging and prosecuting drug dealers who sold deadly substances to people even before a state law paved the way to do that.

A 2019 bill introduced a “death by distribution” charge to North Carolina, allowing dealers to be charged with killing someone by selling or giving them the drug that killed them. It is largely regarded as a “hard-to-prove” charge, but Union County is among the top counties pursuing and prosecuting it, according to nonprofit research by the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.

Union County, Underwood said, had been charging dealers with second-degree murder before “death by distribution” was introduced.

That meant Union County officers were routinely requesting autopsies and toxicology reports in almost every overdose case.

But in Raleigh, they sometimes needed to have “probable cause” that a crime was committed to request an autopsy, Underwood said. Toxicology reports, which show what substances were in a person’s system when they died, typically give probable cause.

But state toxicology reports are finished more slowly than autopsy reports, sometimes taking months or years to be completed.

In 2023 in Raleigh, the medical examiner’s office had just one forensic toxicologist to certify all drug casework, the Observer previously reported.

Union County’s temporary autopsy center is a step in the right direction, said Barb Walsh, the founder and executive director of Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina. But North Carolina really needs more toxicologists, she said.

Walsh, whose daughter died after unknowingly drinking from a water bottle that had fentanyl in it, had to wait five months to learn what killed her daughter in 2021.

“And I thought that was awful,” she said, “but I am consistently getting calls from families that are waiting 10 and 12 months.”

From 2019 to 2023, according to the state health department, North Carolina experienced a 26% increase in cases. That was “undoubtedly influenced by the 69% increase in suspected drug overdose cases,” spokesperson Hannah Jones wrote in an email.

“Another regional autopsy center is a welcome addition to the NC Medical Examiner System to help with the many cases that come through,” she wrote.

In 2025, Underwood said, the sheriff’s office is seeking accreditation to expand its toxicology lab — which is currently used to test blood from impaired drivers — to be able to test blood from those who died from an overdose or fentanyl poisoning.

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Two dozen North Carolinians charged in drug trafficking ring

The arrests come as the Fentanyl Victims Network spreads awareness and seeks justice for families who have lost loved ones to the drug.

Read the original story and watch the video on the WCNC website.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Department of Justice announced a federal indictment Tuesday, charging 38 defendants in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

The indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney Sandra J. Hairston of the Middle District of North Carolina, includes 27 people from the Tar Heel State.

All but one of the defendants are already in custody. 18 of them will have their first court appearances in North Carolina on Tuesday or Wednesday. If convicted, they face up to life in prison for narcotics conspiracy and up to 20 years for money laundering conspiracy.

The charges of narcotics distribution conspiracy include fentanyl, an ongoing problem statewide.

“There is someone who has died from fentanyl in all 100 counties,” Barb Walsh said. “We connect the families to one another so they can gain support and understanding.”

Walsh is the Executive Director of Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, an organization she founded after her daughter, Sophia, died at just 24 years old.

“Killed by fentanyl in a water bottle in 2021. Took us five months to find out that fentanyl killed her. Took seven months to find out that it was the water bottle,” Walsh said. “We learned that it was killing a lot of North Carolinians and that these families, like myself, felt very alone, and we felt nobody really wanted to hear how or why our loved one died. Once they heard the word fentanyl, they were not interested anymore.”

Amid Tuesday’s arrests, overdoses are going down in the state. The latest CDC data predicts deaths have dropped about 30% from 2023 to 2024. Walsh says this is likely due to education and more distribution of naloxone, which she encourages everyone to keep on them, especially since many victims do not know they’re ingesting fentanyl.

“They think it’s adderall. They think they need to do well on the test, so they’ll take a pill from that they order off Snapchat, and it contains fentanyl, and they’re dead,” Walsh said. “That is how easy someone could die.”

She also wants people experiencing grief from a fentanyl death to know there are resources available.

“Once we are gathered together and understanding our grief together, we have chosen to redirect our pain into passion, and that is to save someone else’s life by educating them about fentanyl,” Walsh said.

You can reach out to Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina at this link or by emailing info@fentvic.org.

Two dozen North Carolinians charged in drug trafficking ring

Watch the video and read the article on the WCNC News website.

The arrests come as the Fentanyl Victims Network spreads awareness and seeks justice for families who have lost loved ones to the drug.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Department of Justice announced a federal indictment Tuesday, charging 38 defendants in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

The indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney Sandra J. Hairston of the Middle District of North Carolina, includes 27 people from the Tar Heel State.

The charges of narcotics distribution conspiracy include fentanyl, an ongoing problem statewide.

“There is someone who has died from fentanyl in all 100 counties,” Barb Walsh said. “We connect the families to one another so they can gain support and understanding.”

Walsh is the Executive Director of Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, an organization she founded after her daughter, Sophia, died at just 24 years old.

She also wants people experiencing grief from a fentanyl death to know there are resources available.

You can reach out to Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina at this link or by emailing info@fentvic.org.

Hard-to-prove NC drug law leaves families of fentanyl victims chasing justice

Read the original article on the Charlotte Observer website.

Skateboard wheels skid in front of Sadie’s home, scraping, squeaking, then moving on. She paces between the porch rails, trying to peek at the face below the rider’s floppy hair.

Gwyneth Brown holds a photo of her son, Laird Ramirez, a 17-year-old Mecklenburg highschoolerwho died last July after taking a pressed pill that disguised fentanyl as a Percocet, his parents said. MELISSA MELVIN-RODRIGUEZ mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com

Is it Laird? Looks like Laird. Sounds like him, too, Gwyneth Brown imagines Sadie, her panting, shedding German Shepherd, is thinking.

“I’m with Sadie on this one,” said Brown. “I’m still waiting for him to come home.”

The pair have been waiting more than a year for one of the skaters to kick up their board and walk up the front steps. They never do. It’s never Laird.

Laird Ramirez, a 17-year-old Mecklenburg highschooler, skateboarder and wrestler, died last July after taking a pressed pill that disguised fentanyl — a lethal synthetic opioid — as a Percocet, his parents said.

The Charlotte Observer reported a year ago on accounts from parents and students of how those $7 pills infiltrated Hough High School and how drug incidents inside Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reached a 10-year high amidst Laird’s death.

Justice, Brown said, did not follow in his wake. While law enforcement and prosecutors say they’re aggressively going after people whose drugs lead to an overdose or fentanyl poisoning, some families say they haven’t seen that — and they’re searching for ways to cope once court dates pass.

Mecklenburg death by distribution cases

A man who was 21 in July 2023 was accused of selling Laird fentanyl and charged with death by distribution.

Brown says there was video footage of that drug deal. She says the drugs captured on camera killed her son. Half a pill was still in his wallet when police returned it to her.

Article continues on the Charlotte Observer website.

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Fentanyl trafficking is big business in the Queen City. Feds want to run it dry.

Read the original article on the Charlotte Observer website.

By Julia Coin of the Charlotte Observer.

Charlotte, a U.S. banking hub, was one of the first cities targeted in by a federal Treasury Department program aimed at shutting down fentanyl suppliers’ businesses.

Charlotte’s fentanyl problem has prompted federal attention and intervention. Officials involved in a U.S. Treasury program rolled out under President Joe Biden met in Charlotte Wednesday to join private and public leaders — from federal agents to sheriffs to bankers — to learn how to better shut down fentanyl traffickers’ business operations.

Charlotte — the country’s second-largest banking center — was one of the first seven U.S. cities the program, called PROTECT, visited since it launched in May. It is focused almost entirely on finding fentanyl dealers and suppliers and severing them from their money.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina has a similar program in place, but the federal involvement will enhance how information is shared between private and public sectors — or between federal agents, sheriffs and bankers, officials said. It is designed to give prosecutors more insight into how dealers move money, from quick ATM deposits to big bank account transfers.

Fentanyl has killed 37,000 North Carolinans in the last two decades, according to N.C. Department of Justice data.

The highly addictive and lethal synthetic opioid has flooded communities around Charlotte and overwhelmed local jails, police departments, courts and even classrooms, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Grassroots organizations, like the nonprofit Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, tackle the trickle-down effect of fentanyl’s pervasiveness.

“A person like me — a person with a dead kid — I’m worried about getting dealers off the street,” said Barb Walsh, the executive director of the nonprofit.

The U.S. Treasury Department exists in a different sphere, she said, but those spheres can’t stay separate for much longer.

“If there’s nobody else at the national level trying to help,” she said, “then what we’re doing won’t matter.”

Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo, in an interview with The Charlotte Observer, said the department is focused on cutting the drug off at its source.

“If you are a drug dealer or if you are someone who’s running a distribution network,” he said, “you should know, and your family should know that we’re going to come after the money you are making by selling these drugs into these communities and killing our local citizens.”

Families form united front against fentanyl deaths

Read the original article on the Wilson Times website.

Members of Moms on a Mission and the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina gather outside the Wilson County Courthouse to show support for families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl overdose. *Drew C. Wilson | Times*

Two organizations for families who have lost children to fentanyl overdose came together in a show of solidarity Tuesday as a defendant charged with death by distribution made a brief appearance in Wilson County Criminal Superior Court.

Members of Wilson’s Moms on a Mission and the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina sat in the courtroom as defendant Albert Green, 23, of Wilson, appeared with his attorney, Will Farris.

Green is charged with felony death by distribution in the fatal overdose of 17-year-old Jacob Puente Castro, who died Sept. 25.

Green faces additional charges including felony selling and delivering a Schedule II controlled substance, felony possession of a Schedule II controlled substance, felony maintaining a vehicle, dwelling or place for the purpose of controlled substances and felony possession with intent to manufacture, sell, deliver a Schedule II controlled substance.

Man connected to fentanyl overdose death of Wilson teen appears in court on Tuesday

Read the original article and watch the video on the WRAL TV5 News website.

The man accused of killing a teenager through fentanyl distribution appeared in court on Tuesday in Wilson County. Albert Wilson Green, 23, appeared before a judge on Tuesday. In May, authorities charged Green in connection to the 2023 death of a 17-year-old in Wilson.

The man accused of killing a teenager through fentanyl distribution appeared in court on Tuesday in Wilson County.

Albert Wilson Green, 23, appeared before a judge on Tuesday. In May, authorities charged Green in connection to the 2023 death of a 17-year-old in Wilson.

Several family members of victims of fentanyl poisoning were outside the courthouse on Tuesday, including Felicia Puente Castro, the mother of Jacob Castro.

“He was young … full of life,” she said.

Wilson police officers found Jacob Castro, who was 17 at the time, unresponsive and not breathing on Sept. 25, 2023, at a home on Hillcrest Drive. Castro died at the scene.

During their investigation, authorities determined Castro died as a result of fentanyl intoxication. Officers identified Green as the man responsible for selling Castro narcotics at the time of his death.

Castro, 17, died in 2023 due to a fentanyl overdose.

“He believed he was purchasing one thing, but he got fentanyl,” Castro’s mother said. “We believe that Albert Green knew what he was selling Jacob.”

In October 2023, Authorities arrested and charged Green with one count of selling and delivering schedule II-controlled substance related to Castro’s death. In May, authorities added a charge of felony death by distribution.

Green turned himself in on May 29. Nearly a dozen people arrived in a courtroom Tuesday to support Castro’s family as Green and his lawyer asked a judge for a trial.

Green, 23, is charged with death by distribution in the death of a Wilson teenager in 2023.

“It’s hard to look at him and know that one person can cause so much damage,” Felicia Castro said. “Not only for me and Issac, but to our group and so many in our group behind us.”

One of those people supporting Felicia Castro was Barb Walsh, the executive director of the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina. Walsh founded the group one year after her daughter passed away from drinking out of a water bottle with traces of fentanyl.

“It’s just like a chocolate chip cookie; we don’t know where the chocolate chips are going to end up,” Walsh said. “We don’t know where the fentanyl ends up in a pill. You could cut it in half. One person takes half [and] the other person takes half. One dies, one lives. It’s not worth the risk.”

Fentanyl Victims Network of NC outside Wilson County courthouse.

North Carolina lawmakers passed legislation towards the end of 2023, which made it easier for law enforcement to charge and prosecute people suspected of distributing drugs linked to overdose deaths.

The law also no longer requires proof that drugs were sold to the victim in the case of a fatal overdose, just that the suspect supplied the drugs.

The law went into effect on Dec. 1.

While the law now makes it easier to prosecute drug dealers for overdose deaths, it still could take families months to determine whether a family member died from an overdose.

In June, WRAL Investigates received exclusive access to the chief medical examiner’s office and forensic toxicology lab. The lab said they have jurisdiction over all sudden, unexpected, violent and suspicious deaths in the entire state.

According to Chief Medical Examiner Michelle Aurelius, at least 15,000 family members are still waiting to learn the cause of death of a loved one, with Aurelius saying drug overdose deaths are surging.

“When we look back at 2016 for the fentanyl-positive deaths here in North Carolina, we’ve gone up 584%,” she said.

Felicia Castro said her son will always be with her, and she hopes she can give him a sense of justice with Green behind bars.

“Justice looks like [Green] spending time in prison for his crime,” she said. “Justice looks like no more young people dying from fentanyl … no more children.”

Green told WRAL News at the courthouse that he had no comment on his case. He is due in court again on Dec. 10.

Fentanyl Fatality Victim Summit ROBESON County, Pembroke NC

When	Saturday, September 21, 2024, 10:30am – 3:30pm. Doors open 10 AM
Where	Bear Swamp Baptist Church, 1948 St. Anna Road, Pembroke, NC
Who	Guest Speakers: Senator Britt, Representative Lowery, District Attorney Scott, Sheriff Wilkins & 40+ NC Fentanyl Victim Families available for on-site interviews

***Private Event. Must pre-register. Press permitted with credentials. Free On-Site Lunch Provided***

Contacts

Host:	Barb Walsh, Executive Director, 919-614-3830, barb@fentvic.org Fentanyl Victims Network of NC (fentvic.org), 501(c)(3) EIN 88-3921380 www.fentvic.org
Regional Co-Host:	Leslie Locklear, President, Fight4Me Foundation, 910-733-9788, info@fight4mefoundation.org 501(c)(3) EIN: 92-2765832 www.fight4mefoundation.org

Click here or scan QR code to register.

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