I once helped Sarah fill out a rehab intake form where she listed every drug she had taken and then wrote about her experience with that drug. When we got to meth, she had wrinkled her nose. “I only did it once and I hated it,” she told me. She didn’t like how her thoughts raced, that she couldn’t sit still. Meth use in the United States decreased in the early 2000s, when Congress passed several laws making it very difficult to manufacture meth in the country. But recently Mexican drug cartels have smuggled in an unprecedented amount of meth and are selling it for as low as $5 a hit.
When we got to heroin on the form, she said she couldn’t count how many times she had taken it. She wrote that opioids made her feel calm and safe and numb. Humboldt County has unusually high instances of opioid and methamphetamine abuse, topping California counties in fatalities and babies born with addiction issues.
Sarah died of a lethal meth overdose. The coroner said it was many times over the recreational amount. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a little over ten thousand people died this way in 2017, almost triple the number of meth-related fatalities in 2012.
I had been preparing myself for the call for years. I knew how addictive and dangerous opioids were. I had read memoirs and articles and statistics. She will most likely die from a heroin overdose, I told myself. Around forty-seven thousand people died from opioid overdoses in 2017, a number that has also risen consistently since 2012. I was not prepared for meth. I asked the coroner again and again if she was sure she was reading the right toxicology report. For a moment, I believed that she had the wrong girl, that Sarah might still be alive. It was one thing for Sarah to be killed by her friend, and another for her to be killed by a stranger.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Rural, USA—On Monday morning, Otis Watts, local hunter, reported finding a leg and hand near an access trail in Dry Hills. Sheriff’s officials responded to the scene and a search began to try and recover more of the body.
Watts was adamant that the injuries he saw weren’t the result of wildlife trauma. “I’ve been hunting my whole life and no animal can make cuts like that. This was done by a person,” he told reporters.
By Tuesday afternoon, investigators had found a torso, an arm, and two feet, said Sgt. Michael Green. “We have found the remains of a white male, late twenties to early thirties. At this point in time, we believe there to be only one victim but the search continues.”
Major Crimes was called in Tuesday morning. The identity of the victim is unknown but police are hopeful that fingerprint or DNA evidence will yield a name. Green confirmed that this was being treated as a homicide investigation.
Watts said the area is typically quiet. “Things like this just don’t happen here, so we are all pretty shocked.”