4 found dead inside Fullerton home after friend reported mass drug overdose, police say
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Four people were found dead inside a Fullerton apartment after a friend reported they had overdosed and were not breathing, police said.
When authorities arrived at the residence in the 100 block of Wilshire Avenue about 11 a.m. Tuesday, they discovered the bodies of four adults. Detectives have launched a death investigation.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department identified the deceased as Ramon Louis Luera, 28, of Chino; Melissa Angela Lopez, 29, of Pomona; Victor Alfonso Herrera, 41, of Los Angeles; and Christipher James Satterfield, 51, of Anaheim.
A friend of the group told KTLA-TV that they were all part of the same softball team.
Herrera’s family wrote in a GoFundMe to raise money for funeral expenses that he was competitive on the softball field, but always took the time to “talk to everyone and be himself.”
“Everyone that knew Victor knew he was a one-of-a-kind person,” Steve Herrera wrote. “Every room he would come into, he would make his presence felt with some type of joke or some way to lighten up the mood.”
Photographs on Luera’s social media show him doting on his young son. His partner wrote in a GoFundMe that he was the love of her life.
“I don’t know what to do but I have to keep it together for our ... boy,” she wrote. “We miss him ... very much.”
It’s not clear what, if any, drugs the individuals were using. Fullerton police could not be reached for additional comment.
But drug use has become a growing concern across Southern California in recent years, particularly with the growing presence of fentanyl in certain narcotics.
The rate of death due to opioid overdose nearly tripled in Orange County from 2017 to 2021, from 7.9 deaths per 100,000 to 23.2. The largest increase occurred during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the overdose rate rising 88% from 2019 to 2020, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency.
From 2018 to 2020, the highest rates of drug- and alcohol-related deaths in the county were predominately along the coast, but also were recorded in sections of Fullerton, Garden Grove, Midway City and Anaheim, according to the most recent data available.
Kratom is derived from the leaves of a tree native to Southeast Asia, and is commonly made into a powder or pill. It has been linked to several recent deaths in L.A. County.
In Los Angeles County, six recent fatal overdoses have been linked to kratom, a compound that is being synthetically reproduced and sold over the counter as a cure-all for a host of ailments, the L.A. County Department of Public Health announced this month.
The compound, also known as 7-Hydroxymitragynine or 7-OH, was found to be a contributing cause of death in three residents who ranged in age from 18 to 40, according to the county health department.
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