What a grieving mother's story shows us about the fentanyl crisis in Indianapolis

Yahoo

3 days ago

The piercing chirps and fluttering of parakeets echo through the single-family home in east Indianapolis.
Diane Holt, 73, cares for Pretty Boy and Pretty Girl like she would children, keeping their long, white cage just feet from her bed ("They're my pride and joy," she says).
They've been her only solace in the three tormented years since the death of her son, Gregory, on Feb. 15, 2022.
Greg's death was among thousands in Marion County and her story gives a snapshot into the lasting effects of the ongoing fentanyl crisis.
From Holt's granddaughter's phone call asking why police cars and an ambulance were parked outside Greg's house. The officer informing her Greg died from an overdose. And the dried tears on her only son's cheeks as he laid wrapped in the white body bag.
He still had years left in his life to cook, travel or fish – his favorite activities, she said. He appeared sober when she saw him at Christmas months earlier.
Instead, Holt watched her son become entombed at 48 years old. He left behind four children.
Losing a child so suddenly has made Holt a recluse. She copes with the grief by sleeping and her body language shows the emotional toll: Her shoulders hunch over her thin frame when she sits. Her eyes rarely look up from the ground. Her voice is barely audible.
Murder is what happened to her son, she'll say in her soft voice. She wants the person who supplied him the deadly cocktail of fentanyl and methamphetamine to land behind bars before she dies. She's asked the police, prosecutor's office and local media for help. She never gets answers − at least the one she wants.
'Justice is what I need,' she says. 'Greg had a right to live.'
Holt's story mirrors the experience of thousands of families across Indianapolis.
Drugs killed more people in the city in the past three years than homicides and car crashes combined −more than 2,000 people, to be exact. But these deaths rarely break through the crowd of daily headlines splashed with the latest shootings and violent crime.
The main culprit behind these deaths is fentanyl, a powerful opioid being laced in street drugs. In many cases, the user doesn't know the highly lethal drug is in their supply.
Fentanyl is hidden in many ways. It's being mixed into counterfeit pills disguised to look like prescription Xanax or Adderall. It's being added to cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. The goal each time is to give a stronger high to the more hardened addict, but also ensnare the casual user. But in many cases, people die from the potent drug.
The introduction of fentanyl in the streets has created a crisis that federal investigators say is the worst they've seen in decades – far worse than the crack cocaine epidemic that gripped the nation for more than two decades.
As one deputy coroner explained: Crack cocaine created a generation of addicts and a crime wave. Fentanyl, on the other hand, is 'just death."
Holt doesn't believe her son intentionally took fentanyl. Greg's habit mostly involved a rotation of heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. The only hint lies in his autopsy report, where the people who were with Greg in his final moments told the coroner's office they had taken methamphetamine earlier that morning − no mention of fentanyl. The report refers to his death as an "accident."
In her waiting, Holt has seen families like hers on the evening TV news rejoicing about an arrest in their relative's overdose. In those moments, the sadness washes over her again. She wants the same. But when her family has asked police whether the bystanders to Greg's death could be prosecuted, they're told the harsh reality: Jailing drug dealers who cause an overdose are among the hardest cases to prove in court.
'The coroner's office must have determined there was not enough to say it was a murder,' an Indianapolis police captain told the family in an email. 'I'm sorry that you're having to go through this.'
Law enforcement officials often say overdose investigations are some of the most complicated cases to bring an arrest and secure a conviction. For an overdose case to stand a chance, investigators must tie a person's death to the dealer who gave them the substance.
A person may also have multiple drugs in their system, each from a different dealer. Pinpointing the drug that caused a person to overdose and die, then determining where the drugs came from, can quickly become like finding a needle in a haystack.
Indiana's law targeting drug dealers is also relatively new. Police across the state are navigating how to secure an arrest in the complex and often lengthy investigations.
On a sunny March morning in 2023, Holt and her family huddled near Greg's tomb deep in the grounds of Washington East Park Cemetery.
His remains lie in the top row of the mausoleum, forcing an observer to crane their neck to see. Holt rests on a bench below, her hands tucked in the pocket of her oversized sweatshirt that swallows up her small frame.
'I hadn't heard of it until after he died,' she said, referring to fentanyl.
'I have,' Holt's daughter, Bennie, responded. A distant relative of her boyfriend died from a fatal dose just weeks earlier.
'That really opened my eyes,' she said.
The deadly traces of fentanyl found during Greg's toxicology exam leads the family to refer to the drugs that ended his life as a 'kill shot.'
It's part of what makes his death particularly cruel, says Greg's sister, Michele Alarcon. If her brother had intentionally taken the fentanyl-laced mix, she'd have more peace, she says. Instead, the family is plagued with the visions and sounds of him overdosing.
'I hope when they close their eyes at night, they hear that gurgling in their head,' Bennie chimes in, referring to the bystanders to Greg's death.
Holt nods her head, her eyes still looking to the ground.
'I can't help but think his death has been treated like a folding of the page and moving on,' she said. 'But that just hasn't been how I felt.'
In the years IndyStar has followed Holt, much of the answers about her son's overdose death remain. Who gave him the drugs? Why hasn't anyone been arrested? What evidence was left behind?
But much has changed around her. In Indiana, attitudes about addiction are evolving. On April 10, 2025, Gov. Mike Braun signed a bill decriminalizing test strips that detect traces of fentanyl - something users have long feared carrying under threat of prosecution. The bill will take effect on July 1, 2025.
Federal dollars left over from a settlement against opioid makers are starting to trickle down into programs combating addiction. Fatal overdoses continue to decline after years of record deaths. Experts credit the drop to the multiple fronts assigned to tackle the issue, including wider access to drug treatment programs and access to naloxone, the opioid reversal drug sold under the brand name Narcan.
In Marion County, Prosecutor Ryan Mears announced his intent to hold more dealers accountable as they make strides in learning the new law. In the first few years of the law being on the books, Indianapolis police only made two arrests under the dealing resulting in death law. Since then, police across the Indianapolis metro have locked up more than 20 people in fatal overdoses. At least nine have resulted in convictions.
But even as the city has made strides in lowering fentanyl overdoses, another drug has come onto the scene. Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer, has compounded the problem by increasing the risk of drug poisoning when used with fentanyl.
And the drop in overdoses, while successful, has only made a dent in fatal drug poisonings. In 2024, 506 people died in Marion County still died from suspected drug overdose.
Holt, in many ways, feels like she's withered away, too, since Greg's death.
Some days, caring for her parakeets is the only flicker of joy in the day. They make her feel needed, something she's longed for since her children reached adulthood.
So she clings to her birds, and the prospect she may get answers about the moments before Greg died.
'I'm not real religious,' she said. 'But I have hope.'
Contact reporter Sarah Nelson at [e-mail]
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: What a grieving mother's story tells us about Indianapolis' fentanyl crisis