A new killer in town

Holly Wainwright was puzzled when she picked up her son’s death certificate at Town Hall and saw the cause of death. ¶ She was told months earlier that her 23-year-old son, found dead in her bathroom, overdosed on heroin. But she saw something different on the death certificate.

¶ “I went down to the police station,” Wainwright said. “I’m shaking like a leaf. I pointed to the death certificate and asked the officer, ‘Can you explain something to me? What is this word?’ ” ¶ The word was “fentanyl,” a synthetic opiate painkiller 80 times more powerful than morphine. ¶ Her son, Michael Sharpe, became one of a growing number of people overdosing on fentanyl in the area and across the country. READ THE REST OF THE STORY