HEROIN DEATHS REOPEN WOUNDS

Thomas Schaefers seemed an unlikely drug kingpin.

At 48, the corporate chemist never had a traffic ticket nor problems
with police, never had moved out of his parents' Aspinwall home and
seldom left the house.

So his elderly mother was shocked when federal drug agents raided
their home in December 1988, charging her son in what remains the
Allegheny County's biggest epidemic of opiate deaths. At least 20
people died after using 3-methyl-fentanyl, commonly known as China
White, some of whom thought they were injecting heroin.

"I was shocked," his mother, Anna Vera Schaefers, then 76, said at
the time. "'What's the matter with you guys?' I said to (the federal
agents). 'Tommy's getting ready for bed.'"

What Tommy was doing at that moment was cooking methamphetamine in
the basement. Highly explosive chemicals were found that, if moved
improperly, could have blown up the neighborhood block, an investigator said.

Schaefers, a Calgon chemist, was convicted in 1989 of 20 federal drug
manufacturing and distributing charges, including those that led to
the overdose deaths of two men. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The Pittsburgh area is in the throes of the biggest spate of opiate
deaths since then, this time from fentanyl-laced heroin.

Authorities are searching for the source of the potent fentanyl-laced
heroin blamed for at least six area deaths since June 2 and many more
from St. Louis to Philadelphia since spring. Pittsburgh police have
said the potent drug, sold under the stamp "Get high or die trying,"
likely was made in New York City.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that a Mexican drug lab,
recently raided by Mexican authorities with aid from U.S. drug
agents, might be the source of the deadly heroin, although it's not
known if the fentanyl was added there or after the drug was smuggled
into the U.S.

"There may be more than one source," said John Walters, director of
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "We think
(the Mexican lab) is the principal source."

Although the May 28 raid turned up fentanyl at the lab near
Guadalajara, federal officials don't have confirmation that the drug
is linked to the latest U.S. deaths. So far, federal officials say at
least 100 deaths are attributed to the fentanyl-laced heroin from
Philadelphia to Chicago.

Schaefer's China White was much more powerful than the fentanyl-laced
heroin circulating but was believed to have been distributed only locally.

Unlike fentanyl, the 3-methyl-fentanyl Schaefers made has no medical
use and is 2,000 times as strong as heroin and two to five times as
powerful as the fentanyl-heroin now circulating, said Edward P.
Krenzelok, director of the Pittsburgh Poison Center at Children's
Hospital of Pittsburgh in Oakland.

Jay Duschl, 38, of Oakmont, is believed to have been the first
fatality of Schaefer's China White.

"A man had just shot up 3-menthyl-fentanyl, what would later be
called China White, and the people with him just dropped his body off
on our doorstep," said Oakmont Police Officer Erich Geppert III.

Geppert and other officers revived Geppert with CPR, but he died in
the hospital six days later.

Schaefer's attorney, Sam Reich, said the China White case has seldom
left his mind since he first read about the recent spate of heroin deaths.

"It was a horrible case in that so many people died from taking this
stuff," Reich said. "The most striking thing about it was that the
users were almost suicidal. They had passed out in the past from
using it, and they kept coming back...That was the most horrifying
and striking thing about it that all of us took away from it."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Teitelbaum, who prosecuted the China
White case, said street addicts dubbed the China White stamp bags as
"body bags."

Still, the addicts sought out the powerful drug, as hardcore users
are seeking out the often-lethal "Get high or die trying" drug,
according to police and drug rehabilitation specialists.

"It actually increases the price; it increases the demand for this,"
said Ken Montrose, director of training for the Greenbriar Treatment
Center, which has six treatment centers in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
"People who are on the bubble, it scares off, but people who are
hardcore addicts will seek it out. If it kills, it thrills."

Despite news of deaths pegged to China White in 1988, Schaefers
pushed to continue distributing it, even when his partner, Donald
Sunkin, wanted to get rid of the lethal batch, according to testimony
at Schaefers' trial and hearing. At least 10 others were charged with
drug dealing, possession or conspiracy in the China White ring.

Sunkin, then 39 from Springdale, was a drug user who admitted
recruiting Schaefers to make China White. Sunkin, the prosecution's
key witness against Schaefers, received an 11-year sentence and was
released from prison in December 1998.

Reich said he believes Sunkin, not Schaefers, was the real villain in
the China White case.

Despite the convictions, Reich said he believes Sunkin had another
chemist who made some, and perhaps, all of the China White sold in
Pittsburgh for which his client was convicted.

"Tom seemed like a very introverted person. He was not anything like
a street criminal," Reich said. "It didn't seem to me that he was
some kind of professional criminal who did anything like this on a
regular basis. It seemed like he was lured into it."

Now 64, Schaefers is serving time at the Federal Correctional
Institution in Fort Dix, N.J., with an expected release in 2023.

The region also was the center of another large fentanyl case in the 1990s.

Joseph Martier, of Vandergrift, was sentenced to 30 years in prison
in 1994 after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh to
conspiring to make and distribute fentanyl. Federal investigators
said he was the main player in an elaborate ring that distributed the
drug to major cities nationwide but not in Pittsburgh.

Prosecutors blamed the drug for 300 fatal overdoses, but the link was
not proven in court. None of the deaths occurred locally.

Martier cooperated in prosecuting his accomplices and was released
from prison in April 2005.