SPECIAL REPORT: Snapchat has been linked to the sale of fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills that have caused the deaths of teens and young adults in at least 15 states.
“It was as easy as ordering a pizza,” says one parent.
Reporting by @oliviasolon.
nbcnews.to/3Fciwhl
14-year-old Alexander Neville had been poisoned by a single counterfeit pill that, according to his toxicology report, contained enough fentanyl to kill four people.
“Snapchat is an accomplice,” his mother says.
nbcnews.to/3Fciwhl
In April 2020, Daniel Puerta-Johnson, 16, had taken just half of what he thought was an OxyContin pill that his dad believes he bought through Snapchat.
Daniel was soon declared brain dead and his parents made the agonizing decision to have Daniel removed from life support.
20-year-old Alexandra Capelouto was home for Christmas break from Arizona State Univ., where she received a full scholarship, when she took a counterfeit pill.
The family later saw that the transaction with the person who apparently sold her the pill had taken place on Snapchat.
In April 2020, 19-year-old Devin Norring was found unconscious in his bed.
The family later learned that he had taken a pill he believed to be Percocet, bought through Snapchat with a friend.
”We are still reporting Snaps from Devin’s dealer a year later,” his family says.
In the early hours of Nov. 15, 2020, 23-year-old Ryan McPherson and his brother, John, both took pills they thought were Percocet and collapsed at their dad’s house.
Paramedics arrived too late to save Ryan.
nbcnews.to/3Fciwhl
Kierston Torres-Young and a friend had taken what they thought was Percocet, delivered by a boy they met on Snapchat, as they hung out and watched Netflix.
Shortly afterward, Kierston and her friend both passed out face down. Only her friend could be resuscitated.
Before he died, 13-year-old Luca Manuel had root canal. Afterward he complained about the pain, including to a 19-year-old on Snapchat.
The 19-year-old allegedly offered to sell him a Percocet, his mother says:
“It was not a Percocet … He only had fentanyl in his system.”
On May 8, Dylan Kai Sarantos' mother found him unresponsive.
As an ER nurse, she knew he was already gone.
She would later learn that he’d bought what he thought was ecstasy through a Snapchat dealer. His autopsy report revealed that he’d ingested a deadly dose of fentanyl.
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