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Killer Tide: How Authorities Hold Dealers Accountable For Deadly Doses

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Shortly after Michael McMahon was elected Staten Island district attorney in 2014, a neighbor's son collapsed on his parent's front lawn and died of a heroin overdose.

"When I came into office, I said, 'Let me see the file on that young man.' And there was no file, there was no investigation," he tells WCBS' Marla Diamond. "I thought that was strange and I dug a little deeper, and discovered that yes, when someone died from a drug overdose, the case was not investigated. It was closed, treated as an accidental death."

Frustrated and troubled by the ever-rising number of deaths on Staten Island, McMahon created the Overdose Response Initiative, hoping to reduce drug trafficking through evidence gathering and good detective work.

"I saw a couple great possibilities there. One is -- if we treated it like a crime scene and collected evidence, including and especially the cellphone of the victim of the overdose, perhaps we could track down where the drugs came from," he explains. "And we found that that is being very successful. And that was part of the case that involved the 'Blue Fairy,' or which was known as the 'Blue Angel Take-down.'"

Learn More: Killer Tide. The Opioid Epidemic

The "Blue Fairy" was 25-year-old Sharissa Turk, who gained notoriety after appearing in a viral rap video about the drug abuse epidemic on Staten Island.

"She was eight months pregnant and overdosed early last year. And what that showed to me-- it's tragic, but also how strong the addiction was," McMahon says. "You know, the natural instincts of motherhood and to protect the child in her womb were overcome by the pull of addiction."

Following a nine month investigation, five people were arrested, including Turk's fiance, and detectives were able to trace the fentanyl-laced heroin to Edison, New Jersey.

"When you add fentanyl, this is a willful act. They know, or should know, that they're selling poison that could kill someone with one contact," McMahon says.

Related: Killer Tide: What's Being Done To Break The Cycle

A similar law enforcement approach is taking place in New Jersey, where Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato is using an old law as a new tool to reduce opioid overdoses by holding dealers accountable.

"I think the difference now is that we respond immediately, OK, and that it becomes an active homicide investigation right from the beginning," he tells Diamond.

Heroin packets branded with stamps, witnesses, text messages and phone calls are all key to linking a drug dealer to a dead customer.

But such cases are hard to build and even tougher to prove. Only about 10 percent of Coronato's investigations a year yield so-called "strict liability" charges.

"You need to work with the local police department, you need a team effort, but it's not something that you can wait a week or two weeks. It's something that you have to strike, and you have to strike right away," he says.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, about 80 percent of people who recently started using heroin report that they previously took opioid pain relievers for non-medical reasons.

"Two-hundred and 57 million prescriptions last year in this country of opiate analgesics -- that's two out of every three Americans actually received a script for Oxycontin or Vicodin," John Hamilton, CEO of Recovery Network of Programs in Sheldon, Connecticut, tells Diamond. "How risky could it be if it's FDA approved? These kids today with social media are informed consumers, and they'd much rather try something that actually gets FDA approval in a pill than something that they're buying off the streets."

As our series continues, we'll look at what's being done to cut down on the use of prescription pain killers, alternatives for pain management and why cities and towns across the nation are taking the pharmaceutical companies to court.

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