Mother of Capitol Hill overdose victim: ‘There’s no way to describe this grief’
SEATTLE — Sitting inside her late daughter’s apartment Tuesday afternoon, Annie Horn was a mix of anger, grief and confusion.
Horn said she that her daughter Sara Valenzuela had a history of using drugs to handle heartbreak and injury, but she wasn’t sure why the 36-year-old woman would dabble in a lethal concoction of cocaine and a high-powered opiate during a weekend of partying.
Valenzuela and her friend Maria Paschell, 49, were found dead inside Valenzuela’s Capitol Hill apartment by Seattle police on June 1.
Horn said she had begged her daughter’s property manager to enter the when she hadn’t heard from her in days. When the property manager reported hearing Valenzuela’s dog barking, but no stirring from anyone inside, Horn pleaded with police to make a welfare check.
“There’s no way to describe this grief, it’s all encompassing. I don’t want another parent to have to go through this. This is hell. Truly hell,” Horn said.
Police, in a report released by a department spokesman, said they found the two women dead inside the living room.
Near the women’s bodies was a pile of white powder and a razor blade on the coffee table, the report said. Officers said they also spotted several prescription pill bottles and additional baggies containing white powder nearby.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the women had died about two days earlier.
On Friday, Public Health Seattle & King County issued a warning about the toxic drug cocktail the women snorted – apparently a combination of cocaine and acetyl fentanyl.
Acetyl fentanyl can be 40 times more potent than heroin, 100 times more potent that morphine, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The drug is primarily mass produced in China and Mexico.
DEA spokeswoman Jodie Underwood said agents have become “increasingly alarmed” over the surge of fentanyl sold on the streets of the U.S. Last year the DEA issued a nationwide alert about the dangers of the narcotic.
Underwood said these two overdose deaths, combined with a raid they made on a South Seattle fentanyl lab in March, has left agents gravely concerned that the potent drug is here to stay in the region. There were more than 700 fentanyl overdose deaths nationwide between 2013 and 2015, according to the DEA.
“It’s very alarming to me that we’re seeing acetyl fentanyl here,” said Caleb Banta-Green, a senior research scientist at University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute.
Banta-Green, who is a regional expert on local drug trends, said surveys of King County drug users had indicated a lot of interest in fentanyl because of its potency.
“We’re very concerned that a small amount, a few ounces, could kill hundreds of people,” Banta-Green said. “The line between a good high and death is a fine one.”
Horn said she doesn’t know why her daughter had acetyl fentanyl in her system. While she copes with the loss of her best friend and eldest child she is overcome with anger directed at the people who sold Valenzuela the drugs.
“It’s beyond mad,” she said. “It ultimately comes down to profit. Someone else’s profit is my loss.”
Filed under: General Problems
Steve, WHY DID YOU POST THIS? Cocaine and acetyl fentanyl are not indicated for chronic pain and are only available illegally. Additionally, the article does not substantiate chronic pain. This woman was on street drugs and was in trouble she was no chronic pain patient.
One day, the DEA will be held responsible for the deaths caused by the drug war. After all, fentynal wouldn’t be so easy to access if not for the opioid war. If not for the DEA. I hope they’re proud of themselves.
So her grief over losing a child/loved one( i am seriously sorry for her loss) who was a clear drug addict is supposed to be WORSE when she knew she was using illegal substances the entire time and did nothing to intervene THAN a parent or family’s grief over losing a child/loved one who commits SUICIDE because they had chronic pain due to a chronic disease or severe injury and had been cut off by the medical community of the only medications that enabled them to maintain a somewhat NORMAL life and were then left to wallow in misery and suffering because our government felt they didn’t deserve that normalcy vs an addict who they will now bend over backwards to find medications to maintain their addictions???? We treat our fur babies better than those in chronic pain. We fine and put people in jail for treating animals the way the government is treating the chronic pain community now!!!! They suspend licenses of veterinarians who do not treat animals properly for pain, but they arrest, suspend, revoke licenses and jail doctors and pharmacists who DO treat pain properly….what’s wrong with this picture!!!!
The blame is not only who gave her the drugs but the Dea also.Had the Dea been doing their jobs by priority and going after these deadly street drugs by unlicensed dealers many people would not have died.Instead the Dea will attack chronic pain patients and their doctors making more people turn to the streets for help from pain,mix in with the addicts on the streets.They are essentially causing Genocide.The dea are the reason many addicts do not get help,they are afraid of being arrested now along with them cpp have no where to go.This is sickening and a crime to humanity,done in the name of so called justice.
You are absolutely right George! The DEA is and has been the guiltiest party in the nation wide addiction problem and it’s not just heroin. The real crime is that drugs like Methamphetamine, LSD, PCP and Extacy were either adopted at one time or refined and developed by our government agencies and military for interrogation or enhancing a solders performance. Now all these drugs are all available in every major city and almost on every block. Jose`, your friendly neighborhood street pharmacist is always available to fill your prescriptions, whether you have one or not.
No one in our government, or our population has asked the right questions. The question shouldn’t be, why has the DEA not been able to stop heroin and other illegal drugs?
The question should be, why has our entire government been unwilling to go into these cartel countries and eradicate the cartels? It seems to me that the only people who ever get busted are low level dealers, not cartels leaders.
A parent losing a child is the worse GRIEF,, I have heard of,,,however,,,when greif turns to REVENGE,, u get 10,000 for 1,,,people being forced to endure great physical pain for a mothers REVENGE,,not greif!!!mary
My parents grief over my RARE Chronic pain diseases that have no government funding for research is daily, hourly they lost me the day I developed these diseases one after the next. My body is dying due to NO CURE because it can’t endure the pain. The constant attack at our community our real community is killing us whether by suicide or by comorbities because we can’t live in this much pain and it’s our God given human right to be given quality of life and not to be tortured by our government and insurance. I am sorry for your loss but what if your child was alive without a drug problem living in this much pain would you fight for her then? There are two sides two very different sides and we need to help BOTH!!!
Does anyone really believe that this type of drug use and abuse was caused by legal use of opiates to treat pain? It sounds to me like these women had been using drugs for purely recreational purposes and for the mother to say that, “our pain can’t feel as bad as her grief”, is a unbelievable stab at the chronic pain community.
My words to Annie Horn.
Listen Mrs.Horn, yes, loosing a child is extremely painful no matter the cause and I sincerely offer my condolences to you and your family. I also understand that the overwhelming emotions can cause people to wield these emotions like a Scottish Claymore sword stabbing and slashing at every possible cause or reason you can think of.
Now for your reality check.
According to your words, your daughter has had issues with drugs for a long time. As a matter of fact your words stated that,”She had a HISTORY of drug use for dealing with heartbreak and injury!” MY point is, if you knew of this potentially deadly problem that you admitted to knowing your daughter had, then why did you and your family not intervene and help her get into a treatment program or hospital?
I am truly sorry to.put it this way but I don’t believe that anyone reading this article would blame your daughter for being mentally ill. Obviously she suffered from addictive personality disorder, and addiction is a disease. Just as with Diabetes, Heart disease, Cancer and a huge scope of other chronic illness, addiction is a disease and needs to be treated as such because it just doesn’t get better all by its self. I mean if she would have had a heart condition and suddenly felt chest pains, you would have taken her to the hospital, Right?
Now, because she died of a mental illness, you blame the tools she used in her own self medicating process when you should really be looking in the mirror and start blaming the person looking back. Yes that’s right, you are just as much to blame as the dealer who sold her the drugs.
You knew that she had a problem, you admitted it in your interview. So you either ignored her problem or chose outright not to deal with it. Was it because if you had her admitted to a treatment center it might get reported in the news?
Could it be that you didn’t want a scandal, or was it because you had given up on her?
Either way,a parents love is supposed to be unconditional. This means that if you knew that she had a problem, a caring parent would put their own life on hold in order to help their child. A loving parent would die in order to help their children live and a good parent would spend every dime they have to help their child get well.
So, looking back now, are you really mad at those of us who suffer from chronic pain and are standing up for our rights to have pain relief.?
Or, are you really upset with yourself for choosing your career and reputation over helping your own child recover from addiction?
She was a drug abuser. Not a chronic pain patient.
Newsflash: chronic pain patients aren’t out “partying” when we use our meds. We’re just trying to survive and maybe do housework, go to a job, and spend time with family. The whole “partying” thing here about does this woman’s statement in, not to mention cocaine and the illegal fentanyl have nothing to do with our medicines.
She “doesn’t know why her daughter was using anything else than cocaine????????” How about focusing on the fact that she was actually using cocaine to begin with? She just added another illegal drug to her mix, knowing full well, that it was illegal and dangerous!
I sympathize with her loss, but using cocaine, having a history of drug abuse, those were not the same as being a responsible chronic pain patient. I feel I am watching my daughter die from her chronic pain while the powers that be want to take away what bit of relief her opioid pain meds give her. If they are taken away, I invite this lady to come watch the hell that will ensue. No one is more important than another, but responsible PATIENTS should not be paying the price for someone who got their drugs illegally.