IT SMACKS OF DEATH

Six Fatalities In Six Days Lead Authorities To Believe A Batch Of Killer
Heroin Is On The Streets In The City, And They Move To End The Destruction

A super-potent or tainted batch of heroin may have killed six people in the
city recently, authorities said yesterday, and they issued a citywide alert
while police tried to locate the source of the killer drug.

At the same time, health officials braced for an anticipated rush by
addicts looking for a more intense high, as was the case in 1991 when 12
addicts died and 100 others were poisoned in New York, New Jersey and
Connecticut after using heroin spiked with fentanyl, a powerful anesthetic.

The alert, announced by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Department of
Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, followed the Monday night discovery of
Anatoli Flistovich, 42, in Manhattan Mini-Storage on Spring Street and
several days of blaring headlines about two young women found in an
apartment where they had partied with two older men.

The six deaths over the course of six days in a city where 900 drug users
die yearly of overdoses was termed a "cluster" by Kelly because they
occurred in a concentrated area of Manhattan.

Although dealers will often sell heroin under a name such as the title of a
movie, police did not find telltale packaging at each death scene, and
toxicology tests to determine cause of death are pending.

Kelly said the alert was necessary because "there's a possibility
adulterated heroin was a factor in each."

"This is an ongoing investigation, and we are awaiting further results, but
in this case, I don't believe there is such a thing as exercising too much
caution."

Authorities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rockland County, meanwhile, are
investigating 10 or so other overdose cases and talking with city police
about the possibility there is a connection, as out-of-state dealers often
purchase their heroin in the city.

City police were also hoping to glean clues from a heroin seizure yesterday
in the Bronx.

At station houses and police facilities across the city, officers were
briefed. Some were sent to drug-treatment facilities, others to residential
areas, and they were told to spread the word about the heroin. NYPD vans
were dispatched to areas where heroin use is a problem, and warnings about
the killer drug blared over loudspeakers.

Narcotics officers and Health Department workers, meanwhile, were pressing
informants for anything they may have heard about the source of the heroin.

Frieden said the alert activated his agency's existing protocol, with
workers in close contact with emergency rooms, methadone clinics and
needle-exchange workers.

The first suspicious death happened Aug. 10 when Kristopher Korkowski, 24,
a hairdresser, was found dead in his Avenue B apartment.

Two days later, Ivan Rivera, also 24, died on the roof of an East Seventh
Street building.

The same day, Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez, both 18, were found
unconscious in an East Houston Street apartment.

Carballo, a Hunter College freshman studying psychology, died 20 minutes
later. Pesantez, a New York University sophomore majoring in computer
science, died in her mother's arms the next day.

That same day, Charles Siker, 37, was found slumped over in a portable
toilet at Pier 54 near West 54th Street.

Kelly and Frieden acknowledged the alert would likely catch the attention
of those heroin users who seek out the most intense high possible - no
matter what the cost.

Frieden said his agency would rely on its "network of contacts to get the
word out that these are drugs that can kill you."

Kelly, meanwhile, said police would focus on preventing street sales.

"We're certainly going to have increased enforcement activity in the areas
where these deaths have taken place," he said.

Anyone with information about the six deaths or the source of the heroin is
asked to call police at 800-577-TIPS.