Woman tells fentanyl trial about finding her son-in-law dead of OD
Emotional testimony that married father of three didn’t normally do drugs
Patricia MacLennon came home in 2015 to the horror she had long been expecting — but with a twist.
She found what she thought was her drug-addict son, Dean Trombley, on the bathroom floor. As she performed CPR in vain, she slowly realized it was in fact her son-in-law, Rob Myles, who didn’t normally do drugs. Dead.
On the first day of the fe ntanyl trafficking trial of Amherst burg married couple Lorne Wagner, 51, and Caroline Wagner, 49, MacLennon recalled in particularly emotional testimony Monday how several families’ lives were torn apart July 16, 2015.
That’s the morning she found Myles — a married father of three baby girls — overdosed on fentanyl at age 23.
“I just assumed it was my son,” MacLennon said, recalling the scene she found at her King Street home in Amherstburg after a shift at work. “My son is an addict. I went over to the body and I shook it and I said, ‘Dean, wake up, come on.’ I’d seen him like this before.
“I stepped over the body and I looked at the face and it was really blue and I panicked.”
She noticed some drug paraphernalia on the ground beside him, such as tinfoil and a red straw. So she called 911 and said, “I think my son’s overdosed!”
The operator told her to turn the body over and start CPR, which she did. But something else wasn’t right. “It took forever for my brain to wrap around the fact that I wasn’t doing CPR on my son, I was doing it on Rob,” she said. “The medics arrived and pulled me out of the room and he was pronounced dead there.”
A number of people in the court wiped their eyes during MacLennon’s riveting testimony, including Caroline Wagner, who is charged with one count of trafficking fentanyl with her husband Lorne.
The day after the overdose, MacLennon turned her home inside out, looking for drug paraphernalia, and brought it to the Amherstburg police station.
“His drug of choice was hydromorphones, dilaudids, orange pills,” she said. “Just about anything that was available.”
The high drama continued for her a day later, when she found herself at the hospital giving her son an ultimatum after his nearfatal overdose.
“I’ve been trying to help you and it’s just gotten worse,” she told him. “I said, ‘I can’t come home to you dead on the floor.’ I said, ‘I won’t do that.’ ”
Though Trombley has been summoned to appear in court in this case, the 29-year-old is currently in hospital with his jaw wired shut after being beaten by someone, MacLennon said.
After only one day, the Wagners’ trial has already shed light on the misery that fentanyl can wield — and the grip it holds on addicts.
Earlier in the day, Ashley Delisle, 27 — daughter of Caroline and stepdaughter of Lorne — said she had discussed fentanyl with Trombley, though she never saw him do that drug and never did it herself.
“I did confide in him and tell him that my parents had it,” she acknowledged under questioning from federal drug prosecutor Jennifer Rooke, though Delisle said she thought only Lorne had a prescription for it.
Lorne’s lawyer Shannon Pocock suggested that Delisle’s memory is not as good concerning the situation as it was in July 2015, to which she agreed.
Pharmacy assistant Jessica Labrecque, who worked at the Healthfirst Pharmacy in Amherstburg and before that at the Emrose Medical Pharmacy, also in Amherstburg, said she knew the Wagners well as patients over the course of about five years.
She said Caroline would come in more often than Lorne but that one or the other would usually come in monthly to pick up a prescription for fentanyl.
Asked how many times she dispensed fentanyl to the Wagners, Labrecque said, “A lot,” though she could not be specific.
Caroline’s lawyer, Evan Webber, asked if Labrecque was ever contacted by police regarding this case, and she said yes, but only earlier this year.
Webber noted Labrecque did not have contact with the Wagners in July 2015. Also, he asked whether there were ever any issues with the Wagners complying with the fentanyl patch-return system — where prescriptions can’t be filled unless the used patches are returned to the pharmacy — and Albrecque said no.
The trial continues Thursday in front of Ontario Court Justice Gregory Campbell.