ARRESTS POINT TO SPIKE IN HEROIN USE

ORLEANS - Orleans Police Chief Jeffrey Roy said Thursday that heroin has
become more prevalent locally, the day after Scott Burk was arrested in
connection with the overdose death of Thomas Bok.

"We've made a lot of arrests in a lot of buys for heroin over the past two
or three years," Roy said. "It's very cheap right now, and it's stronger
than usual. The market's kind of flooded right now."

Burk, an Orleans resident, turned himself into police Wednesday and was
charged with distribution of a Class A substance. He is due in Orleans
District Court for a pretrial hearing June 14.

Bok's body was found April 25, although court records said it appeared he
had been dead for at least a day. Police said Bok had a visible track mark
on his right arm and blood on his T-shirt, and that a syringe was next to
his arm.

Police said that Thomas J. Sorace of Orleans, who worked with Bok at Papa
Gino's, told Detective William Norton April 28 that Bok said to him "if you
hang with me, I'll get you some good stuff" prior to meeting with someone
driving a Jeep Cherokee matching the description of Burk's vehicle in the
Stop & Shop parking lot.

Sorace had been arrested on unrelated charges earlier that day.

According to court records, Burk called police April 30 and left the
message, "I'm your man. I'm the one who sold Tom the heroin that put him
out," but he was hospitalized before police could arrest him after an
apparent suicide attempt.

Reports show that when Burk called May 10 to say he would turn himself in,
he told police that he had also been to Gosnold, a substance abuse
treatment facility, on Cape Cod.

Confronting Drugs And Rumors

Burk's arrest came less than two weeks after police charged David E. Pike
Jr. April 28 with distribution of a Class A substance in conjunction with
the April 15 heroin overdose death of Nicholas Tannuzzo.

Police said Wednesday that they have issued summonses for several other
suspects in the Pike case on charges of distribution of a Class A substance
and knowingly being present where heroin was kept.

Pike, 41, had been arrested Feb. 22 and charged with Class A possession
with intent to distribute after police allegedly found him with 38 bags of
heroin.

Tannuzzo's body was found in a house at 16 South Orleans Road, on the same
property as The Juice Bar. According to Juice Bar manager Jenifer Dibble,
the rumors had spread so fast that by the next day, she received a call
from a parent about the Nauset, Together We Can youth facility being closed
due to a drug bust.

Dibble said she put that rumor to rest, and that the only contact anyone
from The Juice Bar has had with the house next door was when someone came
over in June to ask patrons not to park in their lot.

"Sometimes, they're sitting right outside when we come in, and they never
say hello," she said of the house's residents. "I've never seen them on our
side of the property."

The Juice Bar was hosting an art show the night of Tannuzzo's death. Dibble
said the show ended at 9 or 9:30 p.m., but youths were still there because
the establishment was open until 11, so they noticed the police cars at the
house.

"Obviously, the kids were intrigued, but obviously something big was going
on, and I kept the kids inside that night," she said.

During concerts, patrons have to stay on the ramp or in the Juice Bar
parking lot if they want to go outside, and they must be accompanied by an
adult.

"(Dibble has) been doing a great job over there keeping the place drug- and
alcohol- and tobacco-free," Roy said.

As for the larger issue of drugs, Roy said publicity and education will
play major roles in fighting it.

"It's just unfortunate that we don't have the personnel to get in the
middle school or the high school," he said.