MONROE, N.C. (WBTV) – A man was arrested after a 39-year-old died from an overdose in Union County in March, according to police.
Records showed 52-year-old Fredrick Bivens was charged with death by distribution on Saturday, June 28, and given a $1 million bond.
What happened
On March 4, police said they responded to calls for an unresponsive person at a home along Broome Street in Monroe.
Upon arrival, officers said they found Jerry Deese suffering from a medical emergency, and “despite rapid intervention and lifesaving efforts,” he was pronounced dead.
His death was later determined to be the result of a drug overdose, according to police.
Investigation leads to Bivens’ arrest
After an “extensive investigation,” officers said they identified Bivens as being responsible for supplying the drugs that led to Deese’s death.
Authorities advised that shortly after identifying Bivens as a suspect, he was apprehended and placed in the Union County Detention Center.
“Let this case serve as a clear message: if you distribute deadly drugs in our community, you will be held accountable,” said Chief Rhett Bolen. “My department remains fully committed to aggressively pursuing those who profit from narcotics and ensuring they face the consequences of their actions.”
CARTERET COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) — Carteret County has the most charges of death by distribution in the state from 2013 to June 2024, according to the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
The law allows officials to prosecute individuals who sell or give drugs to someone that leads to an overdose death. Carteret County has had 171 fentanyl-related deaths since 2013, according to the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
Barb Walsh founded The Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina after fentanyl killed her daughter in 2021. She now collects data and information from government agencies about fentanyl deaths so people can know what is happening in their counties.
“My 24-year-old daughter was killed by fentanyl in a water bottle. August 16th, 2021,” Walsh said. “She was smart. She was successful and professional. She had just gotten a promotion. She lived in Charlotte, 24 years old, and she should still be alive.”
Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck III said tackling the fentanyl crisis is a priority for his office. He said the death by distribution law has become a strong tool.
“Put yourself in the shoes of a grieving mother or father, many of whom I’ve talked with right here sitting in this office, then come back to me and tell me what you think about the death by distribution law,” Sheriff Buck said. “It’s easy for people to say how they would feel, but when it comes home to them, it’s a completely different story.”
Learn more about the Fentanyl Victims Network here.
Debbie Dalton’s advocacy continues as officials sound the alarm on the crisis.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Union County District Attorney Trey Robison is sounding the alarm about fentanyl and opioids, something he says remains a public health and safety issue as leaders across the Tar Heel State continue seeking solutions.
According to the State Bureau of Investigation, North Carolina averages nine deaths from fentanyl overdoses every day. Community leaders say it’s the number one issue impacting their community.
That’s a number that’s too high for Debbie Dalton.
Dalton lost her son, Hunter, to fentanyl in 2016. She’s been sharing her son’s story for the past eight years. In almost every room in Dalton’s home, reminders and memories are seen throughout. She told WCNC Charlotte that Hunter was a UNC Charlotte graduate who had bright dreams.
“This is Hunter’s room — he loved penguins, so we collect penguins everywhere we go,” Dalton said.
The Monday after Thanksgiving in 2016, Dalton learned she would never see her son again. Fentanyl, which he used as a recreational drug, turned deadly.
“I was bracing for ‘Hunter’s been in an accident’. I never could have fathomed the words that Hunter had overdosed. I just remember screaming,” Dalton said.
“Young people today, to make the decision to try drugs, there really is one of two things that are going to happen: they’re going to end up with a life of addiction or they’re going to die,” Dalton said.
“You can’t talk about those things without also talking about mental health; they are intertwined,” said Union County District Attorney Trey Robison, who’s advocating for more robust mental health and drug addiction treatment programs and places people can go when they need help.
“We’re working on the supply side of the opioid crisis, but the demand side has to be addressed as well. We’re not going to arrest and incarcerate people out of the opioid crisis, that’s not going to happen,” he added.
In the meantime, Dalton holds onto the bucket list her son created. She keeps it in his room as a reminder of why she’s advocating for families impacted by drug addiction to receive support.
“He has on his bucket list to save someone’s life, and what 23-year-old thinks of that?” she said. “We know that’s what he’s doing, his story is saving lives.”
Congressman McDowell pledges to fight fentanyl crisis in North Carolina after losing his brother to an overdose.
SALISBURY, N.C. — The fentanyl crisis tearing through North Carolina isn’t just a public safety threat — it’s personal. At a high-level roundtable this week in Salisbury, that reality hit home as lawmakers, prosecutors, and grieving families joined forces to demand action.
Congressman Addison McDowell, who convened the meeting, opened with a message that carried more weight than politics.
“Getting it off our streets is just the first step,” McDowell said. “Prosecuting those who profit from fentanyl is a major step as well.”
For McDowell, the fight is more than a policy priority — it’s a personal mission. His younger brother died from a fentanyl overdose, a tragedy that inspired his run for Congress.
“We want to stop the deaths that come with this poison,” he told the room, surrounded by district attorneys, sheriffs, and special agents.
Among the voices calling for change was Barbara Walsh, founder of the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina. She clutched a photo of her daughter, Sophia, as she told the story no parent should have to repeat.
“Sophia was 24. She went to visit friends in Watauga County. On her way out of town, she stopped for water,” Walsh said. “That bottle, unknown to her, had just eight nanograms of fentanyl. It was enough to kill her.”
Her story silenced the room — a chilling reminder that behind the data are names, faces, and futures cut short.
“It’s more than a number. Every photo is just one ripple in a massive pond of fentanyl deaths,” Walsh said.
Local sheriffs echoed her urgency, pointing to limited resources and the growing reach of drug trafficking networks.
“What I’ve seen in three years as sheriff — this is a local resource issue,” said Rowan County Sheriff Travis Allen.
Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers added, “We can’t fight this alone. We have to work with partners — every agency, every county.”
The roundtable, titled “Prosecuting the Poison,” ended with a commitment to tougher laws, better coordination, and faster action.
For leaders like McDowell and families like the Walsh’s’, that commitment can’t come soon enough.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, help is available. Contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is cracking down on a popular texting app that he says is helping fuel the fentanyl epidemic.
In a Monday announcement, Jackson and five other attorneys general said they’ve sent a letter to the leaders of the app “WeChat” for allegedly playing a role in fentanyl money laundering.
“We wanna hit the cartels where it hurts,” Jackson told WECT. “And where it hurts is this money laundering, this digital pipeline that has opened up.”
The Chinese-based app, with over a billion users around the world and thousands in North Carolina, is designed to support encrypted communication between people, and also has an integrated payment system. But criminals are using that payment system, Jackson said, to launder drug money.
WeChat is at the center of a triangle of criminal activity between the United States, China, and cartels, Jackson said. The cartels move fentanyl into the U.S., and the sales money then goes to China. Laundered money and goods then move “discreetly” from China back to the cartels, Jackson said, with communication and money transfers often going through WeChat.
This graphic shows the ‘pipeline’ by which fentanyl is brought into the US and payments are funneled through Chinese money launderers back to the cartels.(NC DOJ)
“The motive for most crime is money. If you want to reduce the crime, you reduce the money. The way we reduce the money here is focusing on WeChat,” he said.
The attorney general said he’s given WeChat 30 days to identify potential solutions to the issue. The app has “yet to adequately address the exploitation of its platform by criminal actors,” the announcement said.
A comment request from a WeChat representative wasn’t immediately returned.
“We want them to do enough to change the reputation that WeChat has, because right now, WeChat has a reputation as a safe haven for facilitating money laundering,” Jackson said.
The fentanyl crisis has affected communities around the state and country; with roughly six per day, overdoses from the drug are now the leading cause of death for people under the age of 45 in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Department of Justice.
Monday’s announcement also cited several recent investigations and criminal cases that involved WeChat being used in fentanyl-related money laundering:
“The 2021 conviction of Xizhi Li, who managed an international criminal network using WeChat to coordinate bulk cash transfers between Chinese banks and drug cartels.
Operation Chem Capture (2023), in which eight companies and 12 individuals were indicted for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals, with transactions coordinated through WeChat.
Collaboration between Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and Chinese laundering networks, which regularly use WeChat to facilitate cash pickups, currency swaps, and repatriation of drug proceeds.
A recent 2024 federal indictment in South Carolina, charging three defendants with using WeChat to communicate in order to launder proceeds from fentanyl sales as part of an international conspiracy.”
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced a bipartisan initiative Monday targeting Chinese tech giant WeChat for allegedly facilitating money laundering connected to fentanyl trafficking in the United States.
“WeChat is essentially helping to bankroll the fentanyl epidemic. This must stop,” Jackson said during the announcement.
The effort, joined by five other state attorneys general including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, accuses WeChat of inadequate measures to combat illegal financial transactions that support drug trafficking.
North and South Carolina attorneys general launch bipartisan effort to tackle fentanyl trafficking and money laundering in Charlotte.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced a bipartisan initiative Monday targeting Chinese tech giant WeChat for allegedly facilitating money laundering connected to fentanyl trafficking in the United States.
“WeChat is essentially helping to bankroll the fentanyl epidemic. This must stop,” Jackson said during the announcement.
The effort, joined by five other state attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, accuses WeChat of inadequate measures to combat illegal financial transactions that support drug trafficking.
“Evidence strongly suggests that WeChat has allowed itself to become an enormous digital pipeline for money laundering that fuels the fentanyl trade,” Jackson said.
The coalition has issued a demand letter giving the company 30 days to detail specific actions it’s taking to address what officials describe as rampant money laundering on the platform.
“We need answers. We need them now,” Wilson said.
“If they don’t comply with our request, we believe that we have a range of options for escalation,” Jackson said. “For a number of reasons, we’re choosing not to detail what those options are, but we strongly encourage them to respond.”
The initiative aims to disrupt the financial networks supporting fentanyl distribution, which officials believe will help reduce the flow of the deadly drug into American communities, including Charlotte, with CMPD Lt. Robert Sprague, who works in investigations, also present for the press briefing in support.
“While CMPD’s Vice unit and others within our organization do an excellent job investigating and seizing these operations, this type of activity occurs across the country and internationally,” Lt. Sprague said, “often passing through surrounding jurisdictions before ultimately reaching Charlotte.”
Sophia Walsh
Barbara Walsh, representing the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, is among the hundreds of thousands of people estimated to be impacted by the fentanyl crisis in the United States. She says she lost her daughter, Sophia, an Appalachian State University graduate, in 2021 after Sophia drank from a water bottle laced with fentanyl.
“You don’t really recover from this, as a family,” Walsh said. “Siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, husbands, wives. It is forever, and if we could stop one person from dying, which means one family won’t be traumatized and deal with this for the rest of their life.”
She expressed hope that the attorneys general’s efforts would prevent other families from experiencing similar tragedies.
“If we can disrupt the money laundering, you can disrupt the distribution of deadly fentanyl in this state,” Walsh said.
This announcement comes on the heels of North Carolina Governor Josh Stein’s recent visit to Charlotte, where he pushed for funding for a fentanyl control unit. During a news conference, Stein was joined by CMPD officials and individuals impacted by the fentanyl crisis, including Debbie Dalton. Dalton, who lost her son Hunter to fentanyl in 2016, shared her heartbreaking story, emphasizing the deadly and unpredictable nature of the drug.
“It took hardly a minute for my 6’3″, very healthy son to have a heart attack,” Dalton said. “That’s the thing with fentanyl. You don’t see it coming, but it’s coming. It’s relentless, and it’s killing our young people, and nobody is safe from it.”
The proposed fentanyl control unit, which Stein has advocated for since his tenure as attorney general in 2023, would include drug agents and prosecutors dedicated to investigating drug rings statewide and stopping the flow of narcotics into North Carolina communities. Despite Stein’s persistent efforts, the unit has not been included in the final state budget, including this year’s Senate budget proposal.
Stein urged the legislature to consider the urgency of the situation, noting that the House is currently deliberating its budget. He highlighted the need for additional resources, stating that the proposed unit would cost a couple of million dollars annually, a sum he believes is within the General Assembly’s capacity. While the Senate’s budget plan includes funding for 10 additional prosecutors and five legal assistants for Mecklenburg County, marking the first significant staffing increase for the DA’s office in nearly 15 years, Stein stressed the need for more focused efforts on fentanyl.
At the recent meeting, CMPD officials reported receiving 600 overdose calls so far in 2025, an 11% increase from the same period in 2024. This statistic underscores the growing urgency to address the fentanyl crisis and the importance of the upcoming bipartisan effort announced by Attorneys General Jackson and Wilson.
The proposed fentanyl control unit would include drug agents and prosecutors dedicated to investigating drug rings and stopping the flow of narcotics into the state.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein was in Charlotte on Thursday to push for funding for a fentanyl control unit.
Stein was joined by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officials and people impacted by the fentanyl crisis during the news conference. People like Debbie Dalton.
“It took hardly a minute for my 6’3″, very healthy son to have a heart attack,” Dalton said, “That’s the thing with fentanyl. You don’t see it coming, but it’s coming. It’s relentless, and it’s killing our young people, and nobody is safe from it.”
Dalton lost her son, Hunter, in 2016. She has since worked to prevent other families from dealing with the same loss, and she says Stein’s effort is a part of that.
The proposed fentanyl control unit would include drug agents and prosecutors dedicated to investigating drug rings statewide. It would also be tasked with stopping the flow of narcotics into North Carolina communities.
Stein has been pushing for this unit since 2023 when he was the state’s attorney general. However, it’s never made it into the final state budget.
“I encourage you to talk to the legislature,” Stein said. “The House is considering its budget as we speak, and so, it’s not a coincidence we’re having this discussion right now because I want them to understand the urgency.”
He said it would cost a couple million a year, which Stein said is fully within the General Assembly’s ability. The Senate’s budget plan did include funding for 10 additional prosecutors and five legal assistants for Mecklenburg County. If approved, it would mark the first significant increase in staffing for the DA’s office in nearly 15 years — a period during which the county’s population has grown by approximately 20%.
Stein said this is an important effort, but they still need more law enforcement resources focused on fentanyl.
“I want there to be more local prosecutors, but I just know how local ADAs are, and they are way overwhelmed,” Stein said. “These can be focused on the issue of fentanyl.”
At Thursday’s meeting, CMPD officials said it has received 600 overdose calls so far in 2025, an 11% increase from this time in 2024.
LENOIR, N.C. — A woman was arrested and charged with murder in connection with the 2023 death of her 7-month-old child, according to Lenoir Police this week.
Paige Nicole Blue, 27, was taken into custody on April 30 following her extradition from Lee County, Florida. Blue faces charges of murder and felony child abuse and is being held without bond.
The arrest comes after a lengthy investigation that began on March 16, 2023, when emergency responders were called to a home on Forrest Hill Park Place in Lenoir for an infant in cardiac arrest. Despite life-saving efforts, the child was pronounced dead at the scene.
The infant died from fentanyl toxicity, police said. A lethal dose of the drug was found in the child’s system.
Blue is scheduled for her first court appearance in Caldwell County District Court on Thursday. Police say the investigation is ongoing and more charges are expected.
The Lenoir Police Department is asking anyone with information related to this case to contact them at (828) 757-2100 or Lenoir/Caldwell County Crime Stoppers at (828) 758-8300.
If your loved one was impacted by this incident, WCNC Charlotte hopes to make this process less painful with our More Than A Number initiative. With your help, we want to share who your loved one was with our viewers in North Carolina and South Carolina. When you’re ready, fill out the form below or send us photos, memories and other details about them to desk@wcnc.com.
