ASHLAND, Ohio — It didn't add up for family and friends of 23-year-old Caley Koppler, who died last year of what investigators said was an overdose involving cocaine and fentanyl in her system.
"They took my only child," mother Lauralee Koppler said. "She made a choice to buy something she shouldn’t have that was laced. We know she wanted to go to work in the morning because she picked up a shift offer [at work] that night."
Koppler's autopsy report details how fentanyl and cocaine were found in her system at the time of her death in September 2023. Deputies with the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to News 5 that they are still investigating Koppler’s death.
Data from the Ohio Department of Health shows that fentanyl is the drug tied to most of the overdose deaths in Ohio. The latest available statewide data shows of all the overdose deaths in Ohio in 2022, 81% involved fentanyl. In 2013, only 4% of all overdose deaths in the state involved fentanyl.
Experts say the drug, which is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, is showing up everywhere, laced into just about anything.
Best friend Brevin Bryant told News 5 he knows several people who have lost their lift from overdoses involving fentanyl.
"It's sad to say that it's becoming a huge problem with my generation," he said. "[Caley] just made a mistake and unfortunately it was one that took her life."
Experts agree that fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that legally can be used for pain relief, wasn’t on many people's radar until beginning in 2013.
Rick Ford runs the Ashland County Council on alcoholism and drug abuse.
"[Fentanyl] is in our county as much as we don't like to think about that," he said. "It’s throughout our state and the whole county. The bottom line is this is life or death when it comes to fentanyl. It used to be like others where word was that fentanyl could be in this product or this drug. Now, it’s more the assumption [that users] know it’s in the drug."
And when you talk to Ashland County Prosecutor Chris Tunnell, fentanyl is involved with most of the drug cases he handles.
"This is sort of the evolution of the opioid crisis," he said. "It doesn’t take much. A small bag of it is very profitable and goes a long way and it’s not hard to smuggle in and it’s coming over in mass quantities along the way."
Tunnell argues that what makes fentanyl so dangerous is the high concentrations that can appear in poorly mixed substances sold on the streets.
"If you’re dealing with an addiction of any sort – be it cocaine, methamphetamine, heroine or ecstasy – you need to do what you can while you can to address that because eventually your number is going to be up," Tunnell said.
Now, Koppler's mother is hoping for a crackdown to find those responsible for this surge in fentanyl deaths.
"These people need to be held accountable," Caley's mother said. "You took a life. She didn’t intend on dying."
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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