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.
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.
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.
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.
WILSON COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) – A Wilson County man is behind bars charged with an overdose death.
The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office arrested 35-year-old Devonty Pitt and charged him with felony aggravated death by distribution of controlled substances.
The sheriff’s office began investigating back in May when deputies and detectives responded to the overdose death of 33-year-old Cierra Parker Barnes.
Investigators say it was determined that Pitt supplied the toxic narcotics that led to the fatal overdose.
Pitt has had several previous possession with intent to sell and distribute charges for substances such as heroin and cocaine and is also a convicted felon due to these charges.
He is in the Edgecombe County Detention Center under no bond.
A Wilson man has been charged with felony death by distribution in a teenager’s death from fentanyl intoxication last year.
Albert Graham Green, 23, was initially arrested on Oct. 28 and charged with selling and delivering a Schedule II controlled substance in connection with the juvenile’s death, according to a release from Sgt. Eric McInerny, public information officer with the Wilson Police Department.
Green was given a $100,000 secured bond and placed in the Wilson County Detention Center.
On Tuesday, Green was charged with felony death by distribution.
Green turned himself in on Wednesday and was released on a $1 million unsecured bond.
McInerny said officers with the Wilson Police Department were dispatched to 1705 Hillcrest Drive for a report of an unconscious person at 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 25.
Dispatchers told police that a 17-year-old boy was unresponsive and not breathing, McInerny said. Officers arrived on scene and Wilson County EMS pronounced the juvenile deceased.
Two eastern North Carolina counties have adopted a new way of addressing the opioid crisis, which comes in the form of small purple boxes called ONEbox.
Two eastern North Carolina counties have adopted a new way of addressing the opioid crisis, which comes in the form of small purple boxes called ONEbox.
ONEbox is an emergency kit that contains doses of naloxone, a nasal spray that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdose. The kit walks the user through how to administer the medicine in a crisis.
Wilson County was the first to roll out the ONEbox, and they’ve been placed in 78 locations so far to make them accessible to anyone.
Tiffany Hux said Narcan saved her life.
“I’m glad it did. I am so glad. If not, I wouldn’t be here for my two-year-old child,” Hux said.
Hux has been clean for 10 months after using heroin on and off for five years.
She’s overdosed more than once.
“It can happen everywhere,” she said. “You never know who it will happen to, who it will happen with and where it will happen.”
Jeff Hill, executive director of the Wilson County Substance Coalition, said the ONEbox is all about making naloxone, or Narcan, more accessible.
“We are past the point as a community that we can depend on a handful of people who can save lives. We have to be a community full of people who can save lives,” he said.
The Community Paramedic Program in Edgecombe County is also working to roll out the boxes, installing a ONEbox in Larema Coffee House in downtown Rocky Mount.
Larema Coffee’s owner, Kevin McLaughlin, said he hopes it will help prepare his customers and employees in a crisis.
“Instead of thinking, this would never happen here or to someone we know or see,” he said. “It can happen. It does happen. Every day. It is better to be prepared for than not.”
When the box is opened, users first hear a reminder to calm down.
From there, instructions walk users through how to use the overdose-reversing medicine.
“I can train you as many times as I want, but I do not know how you will react in that moment. If I can give you a tool that can walk you through that process and create that sense of calm, you’ve got a better chance of saving that life,” Hill said.
Even though she is now clean, Tiffany said she will keep the tool around just in case.
“I keep Narcan here. Even if I’m not getting high anymore, I keep it here. Just in case I have a friend who calls me and needs it,” she said.
by Jaymie Baxley, North Carolina Health News April 18, 2024
By Jaymie Baxley
Small purple boxes have become a promising tool in Wilson County’s fight to lessen the deadly toll of the opioid epidemic.
ONEbox is a first aid-like kit that contains doses of naloxone, a nasal spray that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdose. When the kit is opened, a screen embedded in the lid plays a video of a paramedic giving step-by-step instructions for administering the drug.
“Let’s take a deep breath,” says the woman in the video, speaking in either English or Spanish, depending on the language selected. “Step No. 1 is to check to see if somebody really is unresponsive. You can do that by gently shaking them or shouting, or you can use your knuckles against the sternum to see if you get a reaction.”
Dozens of the kits have been placed in strategic locations throughout Wilson County in recent weeks. Jeff Hill, executive director of the Wilson County Substance Prevention Coalition, said he wants the boxes to become so ubiquitous that “any layman will know what it is, know how to identify it and know how to use it.”
“At the end of the day, we understand that anybody in the right place, right time and right scenario can become, or needs to become, a first responder,” he said. “Wherever I can’t be, a ONEbox can — and that could be the difference between life and death.”
Joe Murphy, left, Susan Bissett and Jeff Hill in front of the Wilson County Public Library, one of more than 60 local sites where ONEbox kits have been distributed since February.
‘Community of first responders’
Hill first encountered ONEbox at a conference last year in Washington, D.C. Impressed with the kit’s lifesaving potential, he brought back a sample to show county officials.
“My initial reaction was, ‘Wow, it is so compact and it gives you everything that you need — all the tools that you need — to help save a life,’” said Lori Winstead, deputy manager for Wilson County. “With this system, you kind of avoid that fear of not knowing what step comes next. It puts you at ease, and that’s important in an emergency situation.”
At the time, Winstead was working on a spending plan for Wilson County’s first tranche of funding from a landmark settlement with the pharmaceutical companies that stoked the national opioid epidemic. Money from the settlement, which brings $7.5 million to the county over the next 18 years, can only be spent on services and strategies that address the crisis.
ONEbox fit the bill. In April 2023, the Wilson County Board of Commissioners agreed to buy 200 kits for $40,000. Hill’s coalition received the kits in February and began distributing them to local nonprofits, government agencies and businesses such as Casita Brewing Co. and Thomas Drug Store.
He said the demand was “greater than we expected.” The coalition ran through its initial supply within three weeks, prompting the county to order another shipment of 200 kits.
“I think it caught on so fast because the community bought into being a resource,” said Hill, adding that Wilson is the first county to deploy the kits in North Carolina. “Our quote here in Wilson County is ‘we’re a community of first responders, not a community dependent on them.’”
Unlike many of the state’s rural counties, Wilson has seen a decrease in fatal overdoses. The latest available data from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services shows that Wilson County had 30 overdose deaths in 2022, down from 37 deaths a year earlier.
The use of naloxone rose over the same period. The Wilson Times reported that local paramedics administered naloxone to 105 patients in 2022, a 34 percent increase from the previous year. That number does not include doses administered by other public safety agencies and civilians.
Hill said the kits are part of a larger effort to improve community access to lifesaving interventions. He noted that Wilson County’s Board of Education approved a policy last May requiring every school in the district to keep a supply of naloxone.
“That’s very rare because most people would view that as, ‘Oh, no, we have a drug problem,’” he said. “That’s not what our school system is saying. What they’re saying is the same way we have an AED and a first aid kit on site, God forbid, in case of emergency, we want to make sure that we have naloxone to protect the sanctity […] and the livelihood of our students.”
Another example, he said, is Wilson Professional Services, a local medication-assisted addiction treatment center that offers free naloxone to anyone who requests it. The facility also provides training so people know how to properly administer the drug.
Naloxone has been readily available for years at community hubs like the Wilson County Public Library, where a staff member used it to save the life of a man who overdosed in 2022.
The intersection of Barnes and Goldsboro streets in downtown Wilson. Jeff Hill, executive director of the Wilson County Substance Prevention Coalition, said the community has been quick to embrace ONEbox.
“Wilson has certainly been one of the more comprehensive approaches that we’ve seen,” said Susan Bissett, president of the institute. “They’re using the libraries. They have them in bars and restaurants. They’re working with the schools and the local higher education facilities.”
Bissett traveled to Wilson County with a film crew last month to record testimonials from local leaders. The recordings, she said, are meant to show other communities how to successfully implement the kits.
“To see another Appalachian community embrace this has been incredible,” she said. “The fact that it is a more rural community — and how they’re making sure that boxes are in locations strategically placed throughout the community so that bystanders can respond — is incredible.”
Her comments were echoed by Joe Murphy, creator of ONEbox. Murphy said he came up with the idea after seeing his small West Virginia hometown “ravaged by drugs.”
“The way that every single organization we’ve talked to in this community has embraced it, from law enforcement to the public sector, is unbelievable,” he said. “You just don’t see this anywhere in the country.”
Kristen Kinney, circulation manager for Wilson County Public Library, gives an on-camera testimonial for a video about ONEbox.
Hill believes Wilson County could be a bellwether for other communities in North Carolina. He said officials from neighboring counties have already expressed interest in deploying ONEbox kits based on the successful rollout in Wilson.
“The goal is to create a model that can be replicated,” he said.
