BAILEYVILLE - One man died and another was hospitalized Thursday as the result of possible drug overdoses, according to police.The men apparently were together at a party Wednesday night at 351 Main St. They were in homes about five miles apart Thursday morning when authorities were alerted. The police reports came in within 30 minutes of each other, starting about 6:45 a.m. James D. Dean, 30, died sometime Wednesday night at the home of his mother, Peggy Dean, in the Junction, a neighborhood between the Domtar pulp and paper mill and the Louisiana-Pacific oriented strand board plant. His body was taken to Augusta where an autopsy is to be performed. Tony McLaughlin, 25, was staying at a home on Route 9 owned by his parents, William and Vicky McLaughlin. His mother called 911. Police Chief Philip Harriman said he believes she had just heard the reports about Dean and phoned her daughter, who discovered her brother. He was described as unresponsive when he was taken by ambulance to Calais Regional Hospital, Harriman said. Tony McLaughlin was in the hospital Thursday night. Officials there did not release information about his condition. "We have some indication that the two incidents are related," Harriman said. "It is quite a coincidence for a small town like this to have two [overdoses] in one day and two within a matter of minutes from each other." Harriman cautioned that although police were calling the death a possible drug overdose, it would be up to the medical examiner to decide. "The information that we got from the initial calls and of course our investigation leads us to [suggest] that possibility of that," he said. Harriman said anyone who was at the party at Peggy Dean's trailer will be questioned. He said police did not yet know which drugs may have been used, nor do they know if the alleged overdoses may have been caused by bad drugs or from a combination of illicit and prescription drugs. He said those questions also would be answered in the toxicology report from the Medical Examiner's Office. Toxicology reports, which detail substances in the blood, can take months to complete. He said prescription drugs were seized from both homes, but he did not know what kind or whether they were illegal. They were seized because the situation indicated a drug overdose. Last year was deemed the state's deadliest year on record for fatal drug overdoses. As of last month, there were two confirmed drug overdoses in the state, but several more are suspected. In the Bangor area, Maine Drug Enforcement Agency officials believe the problem drugs continue to be heroin and, in increasing amounts, cocaine. In Washington County, the drugs of choice are OxyContin and Dilaudid, prescription medications. The trailer where Dean was found dead is across the street from two trailers where the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency arrested two men on separate incidents of trafficking in OxyContin in January. The arrests were recently profiled in a page-one story in the Bangor Daily News. Dean died one day after his 30th birthday. He had a history of brushes with the law that began in 1988. He was charged with a multitude of crimes, ranging from littering and driving to endanger to theft by unauthorized taking or transfer to unlawful possession of schedule drugs. Dean was a passenger in the automobile that in 1994 killed Ronald Armstrong Jr., 30, and his three children, Jennifer, 7, Ann Marie, 5, and Daniel Paul, 10. The accident, which received considerable news coverage, occurred on U.S. Route 1 as the family was traveling to Calais to buy Halloween costumes. Dean suffered severe head injuries in the accident. Tony McLaughlin's run-ins with the law began in 1993 and have ranged from illegal possession of drug paraphernalia to trapping without a license. He is scheduled for trial in 4th District Court in Calais on Tuesday for attempting to acquire drugs by deception and violation of condition of release. BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY DIANA GRAETTINGER Baileyville police Officers Shawn Donahue (front) and Shawn Newell walk toward the home on Route 9 where Tony McLaughlin lives with his parents. McLaughlin suffered a possible drug overdose and was taken to Calais Regional Hospital, where information on his condition was not released Thursday night. CLOSE THIS WINDOW |