Two people have been arrested in connection with the quintuple fentanyl overdoses that left five women unconscious in the parking garage of a high-end New Jersey mall last week, a law enforcement source told News 4 Thursday.
One of the women died over the weekend, which may mean upgraded charges, the source said.
The names of the two people arrested weren't immediately known. The woman who died was identified as 29-year-old Michelle Edoo, a single mother to a 9-year-old daughter.
Edoo was working full-time as a trainer at the Cheesecake Factory in the Shops at Riverside in Hackensack while she went to school to become a nurse. It was in the underground employee parking lot where she spent her last conscious moments.
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She had been hospitalized in serious condition since Wednesday's incident, authorities said. A source said she died on Saturday. On Wednesday night, friends and colleagues came together in the mall parking lot outside the restaurant to remember Edoo, releasing balloons into the night sky.
Three other women who were taken to the hospital were released shortly thereafter, and a fifth woman declined assistance. All five were revived with Narcan.
Cops responding to a 911 call found all of them lying on the ground of the lower parking deck at the Shops at Riverside a little over a week ago, on March 15. The source said the two arrests were related to how the women obtained fentanyl, which is up to 100 times more potent than heroin. First responders raced to their aid, photos showed.
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Sources have said it wasn't clear if the women even knew that was the drug they were ingesting. The opioid can be used to lace drugs like cocaine or heroin to produce a stronger effect, officials said. Tests were said to be pending.
The women, ranging in age from 29 to 41, went to the parking lot and ingested what they thought was cocaine. But authorities said it was likely some other powder laced with fentanyl. No other details -- other than that they worked at the mall -- were released.
Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse condemned the drug scourge he says has taken over too many U.S. communities.
"It is truly heartbreaking to see the terrible toll taken by these illicit and dangerous substances," Labrosse said last week, in the immediate aftermath of the overdoses. "My office has been working closely with law enforcement since this tragic incident was first reported, and we will continue to offer any necessary support to the emergency responders and the rest of the community as the situation continues to unfold."
The investigation, which is being conducted by the Hackensack Police Department, the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office and the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, is ongoing.
Fentanyl is considered one of the most lethal illicit drugs, one that is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin and likely behind a rash of opioid overdoses and deaths across America in recent years. The Drug Enforcement Administration said in a PSA that it is "the deadliest drug we've ever seen," and that just two milligrams can be deadly.
In January, a 57-year-old teacher at a middle school in Westfield, New Jersey, overdosed in front of his students, authorities said. He was taken unresponsive from the scene. No update on his condition was available Thursday.
