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.
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.
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.
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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Kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and extortion by cartels await migrants who are returned to Mexico from the U.S., an investigation by @noticiastelemundo showed. #NBCNewsThreads (1/10) nbcnews.com/news/latino/te…
It was a telephone number from Mexico.
A group of men told Denis Sanabria that they were holding his brother, David, 32, and his 4-year-old niece, Ximena. If he wanted to see them alive again, he had to send the kidnappers $7,500 in eight days. (2/10) media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/r…
Noticias Telemundo Investiga interviewed 32 migrants, including David, who were kidnapped from 2019 to 2021 in Mexico and the United States. Their relatives had to pay $1,500 to $5,000 as ransom to different cartels or criminal gangs for each of the kidnapped migrants. (3/10)
Hospitals are activating crisis standards, the government is flying in hundreds of health care professionals from out of the state, and public health officials have little recourse as state leaders hold firm on their opposition to mask mandates or distancing restrictions. (2/7)
After setting a record seven-day average for cases and deaths over the weekend, Alaska broke those records again Monday and then Tuesday broke the record for seven-day average for deaths.
The state was averaging 1,289 cases per day and 12 deaths per day as of Monday.
(3/7)
BREAKING: CDC advisory group votes to recommend Pfizer’s Covid vaccine booster for at-risk populations. nbcnews.to/3zGB7y1
The advisers voted that all people ages 65 and up and those in long-term care facilities who were initially vaccinated with Pfizer should receive a booster dose.
People ages 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions should also get a booster dose.
The advisers stopped short of a full endorsement for other groups of at-risk individuals, instead recommending that they may choose to get the booster shot if they feel they need it, in consultation with their physician.
Idaho hospitals are so overwhelmed with the surge in coronavirus cases that doctors and nurses have to contact dozens of regional hospitals across the West in hopes of finding places to transfer individual critical patients.
The need for ICU bed space is affecting a range of patients: those suffering from Covid, as well as people who have had heart attacks or strokes or were involved in accidents, for instance.
BREAKING: Robert E. Lee statue, erected in 1890, removed from its pedestal on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.
Last week, Virginia’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state could remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, saying “values change and public policy changes, too” in a democracy.
Virginia promised to forever maintain the statue in the 1887 and 1890 deeds that transferred its ownership to the state. But the justices said that obligation no longer applies.