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INSIDE LOOK: Union County crime lab’s crucial role in putting criminals behind bars quicker

UNION COUNTY, N.C. — Union County is working to speed up justice with its crime lab and newly accredited FIELDS of evidence, which means faster results while putting criminals behind bars and getting innocent people out.

Channel 9′s Hannah Goetz spoke with forensic chemists, crime scene investigators, and law enforcement officers on Thursday about the work they are doing, which is helping to cut back on the state lab’s backlog.

The digital forensic lab has equipment used to analyze things, such as text messages, which could lead to an arrest.

“It’s key for us to create a timeline of that victim’s last hours and this room does a great job of providing us that,” said Lt. James Maye.

The work in the digital forensic lab can help in cases of fentanyl poisoning to identify drug dealers.

“This evidence is used to determine which source provided the narcotics that ended the life of a victim,” Maye said.

The crime lab’s most recent accreditation was in the fall of 2023, which allowed officials to process fingerprints and blood alcohol testing on-site.

The blood alcohol analysis, which could be crucial in a DWI arrest, starts there where vials are filled and prepped for testing.

“The alcohol that’s in the blood will slowly go into the air above the sample,” said forensic chemist, Dayla Rich.

“So, you test not the blood, but the air that is coming out of it?” Goetz asked.

“Correct,” said Rich.

Running those tests in-house can provide results weeks or even months faster. Other local law enforcement agencies can use the lab too.

“Sheriff (Eddie) Cathey is encouraging everyone to bring us your phones, your blood, anything we can do to get criminals off the street bring it to us we’ll take care of it,” said Lt. Maye.

In the coming months, they’re hoping to be accredited in other fields of evidence analysis, including DNA, blood drug toxicology, and seized drugs.

The lab will not conduct autopsies on-site. That will be the responsibility of the regional medical examiner’s office.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office hopes to eventually do postmortem-blood-drug testing for death by distribution cases.

Read the full article and watch the video on the WSOC TV9 website.

NC State sophomore raises money to provide free Narcan to students

Sophomore Alyssa Price said she lost two friends to overdoses, and now she’s raising funds to provide free Narcan to students.

An NC State student is raising funds to help fight overdoses on campus.

Sophomore Alyssa Price said she lost two friends to overdoses, so she wanted to do something to help save others.

That’s why she is raising funds to provide Narcan – a medicine that reverses opioid overdose – free to students.

The university has increased resources after 14 students deaths, including two fatal overdoses, during the 2022-23 school year.

Price said this is one area where she felt she could do more.

“They created a bunch of preventative measures last year,” Price said. “But we did not have the part that was, ‘What if it happened?'”

She said she’s trying to help students be more prepared – and proactive – in the case of an emergency.

NC State prevention services does provide free Narcan kits to any campus community member – upon request. The university said it has distributed 744 kits throughout the past two years.

Price started a GofundMe to help raise money for her free Narcan initiative.

Read the full article and watch the video on the WRAL website.

‘No person that is safe’: Families continue the fight against fentanyl during victim summit

MONROE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The Fentanyl Victims Network met Saturday morning to continue the fight against the deadly drug taking over the nation.

Families who lost loved ones in the fentanyl poisoning shared their stories and pictures in hopes of uplifting each other.

Debbie Dalton was one of them.

“There is no demographic; there is no person that is safe from this evil that is taking our children,” said Dalton.

In 2016, she lost her son Hunter to the drug after she said a good friend offered it to him.

“Hunter joked about it, like, ‘I don’t do this. I’m 23.’ He laughed about it. But unbeknownst to Hunter and his good friend, it was cut with fentanyl, and it gave my 6’2″ son a heart attack. He didn’t stand a chance against it. He was so strong that he survived for six days, and I held his hand, but he never regained consciousness,” Dalton said.

In his memory, she started the Hunter Dalton HD Life Foundation. Her mission now is to spare other families from going through the same heartache.

North Carolina is fourth in the nation in fentanyl deaths, but only 10th in population. Between September 2013 and September 2023, over 1600 people died from the drug in Gaston, Mecklenburg, and Union counties.

Jelly Roll urges Congress to pass anti-fentanyl trafficking legislation: “It is time for us to be proactive”

Rapper-turned-country singer Jelly Roll spoke about the importance of prioritizing the fentanyl crisis at a Senate hearing on Thursday.

The musician, whose real name is Jason DeFord, testified before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, chaired by Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Jelly Roll urged Congress to pass Brown’s Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act, which would wield financial sanctions against drug traffickers to disrupt the flow of opioids coming in from China and Mexico.

Jelly Roll, who from the age of 14 spent 10 years in and out of detention facilities for drug dealing and other crimes, said he was part of the problem but now wants to be part of the solution.

“I brought my community down. I hurt people,” he testified. “I was the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemists with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about, just like these drug dealers are doing right now when they’re mixing every drug on the market with fentanyl. And they’re killing the people we love.”

Sen. Brown cited data showing 110,000 Americans died due to unintentional drug overdoses in 2022.

Read the full article and watch the video on the CBS News website.

Do youth anti-drug campaigns actually work?

Programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in Charlotte use modern slang to communicate a timeless message: Drugs can kill.

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now have access to free kits that revive someone suffering an opioid overdose and test strips to see what the drugs they are about to take contain.

These steps, which assume students are using drugs, are designed to save lives, but prompt the question: Will the tactics work for today’s students?

Riley Sullivan, the group’s cofounder and director, believes the kits will actually help reduce drug use on campus. He said the group has handed out about 900 naloxone kits and 500 fentanyl test strips this semester alone.

In Charlotte, a public awareness campaign called “Street Pills Kill” uses the slang of youth to convey the same message. The phrases are the new generation of “just say no” or “above the influence.”

“No cap, those pills are sus.”

Young people use the words “no cap” to say they are telling the truth or they aren’t lying. To use the word “cap” would mean someone is lying.

“Sus” is short for suspicious.

Another sign says: “you plus street pills equals … we don’t ship.”

“Ship” means you want two people to date or enter a romantic relationship.

The language is how kids speak nowadays, but will they listen to the kind of messaging?

Remember McGruff the Crime Dog or the “this is your brain on drugs” ad of a man cracking an egg on a skillet?

You might also remember other campaigns like “truth”and “DARE” to name a few.

2023 child Fentanyl deaths reach record high in North Carolina

Data from the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force indicates nearly three dozen children under the age of 17 died from fentanyl in 2022.

Nearly three dozen North Carolina children died from fentanyl in 2022, marking another record high in childhood deaths from the deadly substance.

Ten children under 6 years old and 25 teenagers between 13 and 17 years old died from the drug, according to data presented to the unintentional death prevention committee of the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force on Thursday. The task force didn’t present data on children between 6 and 12.

In 2021, 11 young children and 14 teens died from fentanyl. In 2015, it was one for teens.

“We have a problem,” said Michelle Aurelius, the chief medical examiner for the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. “It is reflected not only nationally, but here in North Carolina. We’re in trouble.”

In 2022, there were 4,243 suspected overdose deaths in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In 2023, through November, there were 3,853 suspected overdose deaths.

Deaths among adolescents often stem from them choosing to take drugs, including fentanyl.

Union Co. opioid overdose deaths up 166% in 2023, mostly from fentanyl

Law enforcement says many of the 32 deaths in 2023 were first-time users who didn’t know they were taking fentanyl.

ONROE, N.C. (WBTV) – A 166% increase in opioid deaths happened in Union County last year, with fentanyl being the main factor.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office wants families to be aware that many of the victims are not serious drug users, but rather first-time users who may not even know they’re taking fentanyl.

According to the Union County Sheriff’s Office, 32 people died from opioid overdoses in 2023. That’s 166% higher than the previous year. Additionally, overdose calls were up 17% in the county at 170 in total.

Union County Sheriff’s Lt. James Maye said that it’s important for people, especially parents, to be aware of the hidden dangers of fentanyl. First, it’s incredibly potent.

“Powdered fentanyl, you’re talking about an amount less than the size of a penny could end a person’s life,” Maye said.

Those taking fentanyl often aren’t even aware they’ve done so.

“It’s often not your longtime drug user,” Maye said. “It may be one of your teenagers, a local student. They may want to try something like Xanax or Adderall, but it could be fentanyl and they don’t even know it.”

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