OVERDOSES BEWILDER FAMILIES

Pain Relief Leads To Addiction, Turns To Tragedy

EVARTS, Ky. - Harlan County businessman Wayne Anglian loved the excitement
of listening to the police scanner.

But the static-filled conversation between the local police chief and the
coroner early on Aug. 9 took his breath away.

"They were talking about Harold," Anglian said, referring to one of his
sons. "The chief said Harold was in a house in Evarts and he (the coroner)
needed to head over there right away."

Startled, Anglian drove the few miles to the house and discovered his
38-year-old son half nude in a chair, his head lifelessly slumped on his
chest. Harold's twin brother, Jimmy, had alerted police.

At 7 that morning, Harlan County Coroner Phillip Bianchi pronounced Harold
Anglian dead. Toxicology tests determined that a lethal injection of
OxyContin killed him.

Last week, federal prosecutors announced a sweeping investigation in
Eastern Kentucky of illegal trafficking in the highly addictive drug, a
synthetic morphine that is prescribed to people who suffer chronic and
severe pain.

More than 200 people have been indicted, and authorities said 59
Kentuckians have died of OxyContin overdoses in the past 13 months. About a
dozen of the deaths occurred in Harlan County.

Wayne Anglian, a former junkyard owner and coal miner who also has driven
trucks for a living, knew his son had prescription painkillers for chronic
back problems caused by a carpentry accident years ago, when he worked in
Georgia. But he's certain OxyContin was not one of them.

Anglian, who opened Pappy's Furniture following his son's death, using the
name Harold always called him, believes personal and physical problems most
likely led his son to experiment with OxyContin.

His son had gone through a messy divorce a few months before he died, and
he had lost a younger brother -32-year old Rick -in a car crash less than a
year before. Harold also was on welfare and had medical problems that
limited the amount of work he could do -generally helping out his dad.

Harold also was troubled about losing touch with his only child, a teen-age
son who lives in Lake Mountain in Harlan County. Harold's stepmother,
Nadine Bennett, said they saw each other occasionally.

At Wayne Anglian's trailer home in this community of about 1,000 people,
pictures of Harold and his brothers dominate the walls. Harold grew up and
went to school in the community, but quit in the eighth grade.

His father, who called Harold "a good country boy," considered him a friend
and confidant and does not believe he would purposely inject so much
OxyContin. So he launched his own investigation, interviewing a friend of
his son who was present shortly before he overdosed. The friend
reconstructed the events of that night.

"He said Harold bought 40 milligrams of OxyContin from a dealer and
injected half of it into his right arm," Anglian said. The friend also said
they were about to leave when the dealer "shot Harold up with another 40
milligrams in his right arm." Anglian believes it was the "freebie" shot
that killed his son, and he is pressing for criminal charges against the
dealer who sold him the drug.

Lupe Blas, the Evarts police chief whose radio call inadvertently tipped
off Anglian to his son's death, declined to open his files or disclose any
information from the investigation of the death, other than to say the case
remains open.

Bianchi, in his official finding, characterized the death as accidental. "I
never knew Harold to take OxyContin before that night," Anglian said. "He
used to come to me all the time and tell me how he was hurting. We talked
about his problems."

Anglian said his son was a "victim of circumstances," one of many people in
the region introduced to OxyContin because of pain in their lives.

Another was Carolyn Sue Saylor, who obtained a doctor's prescription for
the drug in the spring of 1999 to help ease the pain of an infection that
stemmed from a major knee operation.

Saylor, who like Anglian grew up in Harlan County, dropped out of James A.
Cawood High School in the 10th grade. Not long after that, her knee was
shattered when she was pushed to the ground during horseplay with friends.
The injury became a lifetime ordeal of pain, her mother and sister said.

Saylor developed a deadly addiction to OxyContin in the last months of her
life, they said. Barely able to walk and unable to work, she moved in with
her mother in 1999 and spent much of her time in a small cottage behind the
house, where she would smoke cigarettes and watch television. On the night
of Jan. 27, 2000, Saylor watched TV in the cottage with her sister, Mary
White Brock.

"I sat up with her until 11 o'clock," Brock said. "Carolyn said she didn't
want to go to bed just yet.