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CNN Live At Daybreak

Texas: Bad Batch of Heroin or Cocaine Likely Cause of 15 Deaths

Aired August 14, 2001 - 08:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: In Texas, Houston police suspect a bad batch of heroin or cocaine was responsible for 15 drug-related deaths over this weekend.

More from Jeremy Desel of CNN affiliate KHOU.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DESEL, KHOU REPORTER (voice over): The first cases started popping up here -- zip code 77093 -- northeast Houston near Highway 59 -- four on Saturday alone.

Joseph Erie Jr. (ph) died here early Sunday morning. He would be O.D. No. 5.

Neighbors say drugs are commonplace here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We tried to tell somebody, but you can't prove it. So what can you do? I mean, we see it. We see the kids walking around with it.

DESEL: Now, dying from it.

The proximity of the cases is frightening, literally within blocks. Pinetree, Havner, Wardmont -- another half dozen nearby. Other cases spread out around the county.

Medical examiner, Dr. Joye Carter, says so many O.D.s in so short a time is new to Harris County.

DR. JOYE CARTER, MEDICAL EXAMINER: We had maybe half a dozen cases a couple of years ago, but nothing to this extent. I have seen it across other parts of the country, where you can almost pinpoint a source.

DESEL: In some cases, a single dealer. Packets of what are likely drugs were found on one victim, a syringe still in another's arm. The victims are racially diverse -- eight Hispanic males, four white females, two white males, one black male -- as young as 16, as old as 46.

For investigators, exactly what is in the drug or what is killing users is still a mystery. Dr. Ashraf Mozayni runs the M.E.'s crime lab. She says the makeup of the powder found on one victim and the way the drugs appear to be taken by others shed some light.

DR. ASHRAF MOZAYNI, CRIME LAB DIRECTOR: That kind of lead me that it might be cocaine more than anything else.

DESEL: No matter what it is, the advice is the same: Don't do it.

MOZAYNI: Something that's really bad is on the street killing quite a lot of young people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NELSON: That report from Jeremy Desel of CNN affiliate KHOU.

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