Brandon Twp.- The death of a 51-year-old township man last weekend was likely the result of a heroin overdose.
According to police reports, deputies responded to a home in the 3700 block of Birch on Oct. 26. Brandon Fire Department medics were at the scene, called by a woman who arrived home to find her husband lying on the kitchen floor, with a syringe in his left hand. A candle was burning on the kitchen counter and a spoon with a blackened bottom was next to it. The man was deceased when medics arrived.
The woman said she’d last seen her husband at noon, prior to dropping their grandchildren off in Warren. She told police he’d had a heroin problem in the past, but had been clean for two years.
Autopsy results are pending from the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office.
‘Heroin is on its way back in Brandon and around the country,? said Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Pete Burkett. ‘It shocks me to see the number of people we run into in the township using heroin. I used to think it was an urban problem, but there is plenty of it being used out here, too.?
Burkett is concerned about the possibility of fentanyl-laced heroin happening again, which killed more than 1,000 people nationwide two years ago, including a few hundred people in metro Detroit.
‘I hope it’s not a pattern we’ll see,? he said. ‘I have no idea what possesses anyone to stick a needle in their arm to get high. I’m baffled on how someone gets to that thought process. The outcome could be death, or you become addicted and it controls your life forever.?