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Terrebonne Parish authorities are investigating the deaths of two people at two different locations, believed caused by heroin overdoses, within the course of a single day.
The proximity of the time frame, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said, is unprecedented in his experience.
The first case was reported at around 8:30 a.m. Thursday when deputies responded to a call at the Economy Inn on Hollywood Road.
They found the body of Christy Hurst, 35, along with paraphernalia that suggested her death was caused by a heroin overdose.
At about 5:30 p.m., deputies were called in regard to a request for medical attention at 145 Al Joseph Lane in Schriever.
Terry Braud Jr., 28, was pronounced dead and his girlfriend, who was not identified, was transported to a hospital, where she was treated for a potential heroin overdose.
The girlfriend, Larpenter said, is expected to recover.
Detectives said they do not believe the victims no each other, however further investigation is being done to determine the source of the heroin.
Larpenter said criminal charges in one or both cases are a possibility.
The deaths, Larpenter said, are in his opinion positive proof of the dangers arising from a local increase in heroin traffic.
“I don’t think the users realize the strength as far as the purity,” Larpenter said. “Before, you were getting heroin from the Middle East that was 22 percent pure, today it is 90-95 percent pure.”
Crackdowns on prescription opiates, Larpenter and other law enforcement officials have said, have caused some people addicted to such drugs to turn to heroin.
People who have recently picked up illegal drugs and choose heroin, Larpenter said, may not realize the risk.
“Once you are hooked you have sold your soul to the devil,” the sheriff said.
One of the things detectives are trying to determine is who supplied the heroin, and under what circumstances.
Earlier this year a Houma man, 35-year-old Jason Parfait, pled guilty to negligent homicide in connection with the heroin overdose death of John Foshee, 27, in 2013.
The numbers of known heroin deaths in Terrebonne and Lafourche are small. But authorities have no doubt that increased volume of heroin in the region will lead to more.
The Terrebonne Parish Coroner’s Office recorded four heroin overdoses in 2014. This year there were three, with the latest two potentially bringing the number to five.
In Lafourche, there were two confirmed heroin deaths in 2013, according to Coroner John King.
Heroin overdoses are not always easy to diagnose after death, however, said King’s investigator, Mark Goldberg.
That’s because heroin metabolizes in the blood and is undistinguishable from other opiates within about three hours; heroin can remain in urine for eight hours.
But coroner investigators said that those who die of the overdoses often die in their sleep and are not discovered in time for a clear distinction to be made.
