CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A string of heroin overdoses in three neighboring Harrison County towns in a span of 18 hours has put law enforcement on high alert going into the weekend.
“The cases started being reported, notes were being compared, and [law enforcement] started testing the samples of the heroin they found at these locations and started to put the puzzle together,” Bridgeport Police Chief and President of the Greater Harrison County Drug and Violent Crime Task Force John Walker said Friday.
Between 3 am Thursday morning and 9 pm Thursday night, four overdoses in Clarksburg, Bridgeport, and Anmoore lead the Task Force to begin investigating the source of the heroin.
“Our Greater Harrison County Drug Task Force is working on that, and I do believe they have a lead on that,” Chief Walker said.
Walker said the heroin, which is labeled as “Jungle Killer” on the stamps, is mixed with the dangerous opioid fentanyl.
“A lot of the time the dealers will stamp it with some type of logo,” Walker said. “The logo they stamped on this was ‘jungle killer.’ It was stamped in blue ink.”
Walker said anyone in the area who sees something resembling these heroin stamps–whether they’ve been used or not–should avoid touching or exposing themselves to it and call police immediately.
“There’s been cases where just the residue has gotten into the blood stream or into your airway and it can actually have an adverse reaction to the point where you become unconscious,” Walker said.
First responders revived all four people who overdosed with the emergency drug narcan. Walker said if any of those people had died, the Harrison County Prosecutor’s Office could have sought murder charges against the dealers.
It’s believed that heroin mixed with fentanyl led to a string of 28 overdoses in Huntington last month.