HEROIN DEATHS LIKELY TO DOUBLE IN 1998

Milwaukee police seizing 60% more of the drug than one year ago

Heroin-related deaths to date in Milwaukee County have already surpassed
totals for each of the past two years and are expected to more than double
in 1998, the medical examiner's office said Monday.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee police said they are confiscating 60% more heroin than
at this time last year. The rise comes after the formation of a task force
announced in August to combat a new potent form of heroin here.

Warren Hill, the investigative coordinator for the medical examiner's
office, said there have been 15 heroin or morphine-related deaths in
Milwaukee County this year to date; the office is projecting a total of 25
by the end of the year. That's compared with 10 in all of 1997 and seven in
1996.

Heroin breaks down in the body too soon to be detected by medical
examiner's officials, but it remains detectable as morphine, Hill said.
Deaths tagged by the medical examiner as solely heroin-related are already
nine, up from two for all of 1997 and five in 1996. Some of the morphine
deaths also are probably heroin, Hill said.

Already, the human cost of the drug is obvious in the medical examiner's
files. Fifteen lives have become 15 manila folders filled with toxicology
reports and photographs of corpses.

Take 26-year-old Susan Beecher. Beecher, of the 3100 block of N. 83rd St.,
was found unconscious of a heroin overdose Jan. 15 in a downtown Holiday
Inn restroom and died two days later.

Beecher's mother told investigators that her daughter began a life of
substance abuse after being sexually abused as a teenager. She was unable
to work after a severe car accident. And she had a boyfriend with a drug
problem whom the mother "just could not get her daughter away from,"
reports say.

That boyfriend, Andrew Jackson Owens Jr., 47, was himself found dead July
11 of a heroin and cocaine overdose in the home the couple had shared,
according to reports on file with the medical examiner.

His body was found on a living room floor, surrounded by needles, spoons, a
mirror, razor blade, crack pipe and syringes, reports say. A tourniquet was
wrapped around his arm. Investigators found Beecher's room nearby still
filled with her possessions.

Other deaths include a 28-year-old West Allis man in the midst of a bitter
divorce; a 47-year-old Milwaukee veteran who had just lost his job as a
boiler attendant at a high school; and a 23-year-old inmate at a community
correctional facility who went to a heroin party while he was supposed to
be getting drug treatment.

Law enforcement officials announced Aug. 18 that they were forming a
special squad of federal, state and local law enforcement agents to combat
an "extremely potent and highly addictive" heroin now being found here.

Jack Riley, head of the local office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, and U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) announced that the new
task force would be funded through a $3 million federal high intensity drug
trafficking area grant. It includes members of the DEA, FBI, U.S. Customs
Service, the Sheriff's Department, Milwaukee Police Department and state
Division of Narcotics Enforcement.

Officials are calling the drug "new heroin" because it's a very pure, cheap
and highly potent form that can be smoked or inhaled, as opposed to being
injected with needles.

Hill said it's usually not possible to determine for certain how a person
took the drug or whether it was "new heroin."

But he did say of those who died from overdoses, "It looks like with some
of the heroin, they are not injecting it, they mix the new stuff with
cocaine or use it for smoking. We're seeing more heroin mixed with cocaine
this year."

Likewise, Capt. Raymond Sucik of the Milwaukee Police Department said the
police are analyzing drugs confiscated to determine whether the increase
was due solely to the newer form of heroin.

Sucik, however, would not reveal exactly how much heroin officials have
confiscated.

But he said, "We're seeing with the pure forms of heroin that people are
doing other things with it than injecting it. They're smoking it or they're
sniffing it."

Officials said the "new heroin" first appeared in the state a few years
ago, shortly after it appeared in Chicago.

Some other lives lost to heroin this year, according to reports on file
with the medical examiner, included:

Rediego Jordan, 34, a nursing assistant, found dead sitting on his couch in
the 9200 block of N. 75th St. on Feb. 16. He died of mixing cocaine and
heroin. A cigarette lighter was clutched in one hand.

Eleazar Godina, 29, a laborer, found dead on the floor of his apartment in
the 100 block of W. Mitchell St. by his girlfriend March 24. A syringe lay
near his knee.

The girlfriend told investigators she had just left Godina because of his
drug abuse, adding that he used "anything and everything he could get his
hands on. Cocaine, heroin, crack, crank, and pills."

Raymond McCarthy, 23, a runner for a stock trading company, died at a
community correctional facility after returning from a release for alcohol
and drug treatment. He was incarcerated there for drug delivery.

McCarthy was heard "bragging about a party involving sexual activity and
heroin consumption," reports said. Heroin ingestion killed him.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson