more ›

The Medical Examiner's office confirmed that Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez, the 18 year-old college students whose deaths made city health and police officials wonder if there was a citywide "bad heroin" epidemic, died of heroin and cocaine overdoses - with no evidence that the drugs were tainted. The deaths were called accidental, but police are still investigating the four other overdose deaths during a two week period; the Daily News adds there may be a seventh death related to this recent spate of ODs. more ›

The police have arrested Alfredo Morales, one of the men with the two 18 year-olds who died of a drug overdose on East Houston Street last week, was arrested for drug possession in the East Village yesterday. The other man, Roberto Martinez, had been arrested earlier parole violations. But the police may be using the arrests to get more information from him about the deaths of Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez. Their overdoses seem to be from both heroin and cocaine; the men told police the four had taken drugs together but they told relatives they had just been "playing cards and drinking malt liquor." more ›

There's more information about the mysterious deaths of Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez, the two 18 year old women who were found unconscious at a Lower East Side apartment and later died. The girls' families say they were not drug addicts, but friends and the two men who were last with the girls say they had been using drugs. The police think uncut heroin or cocaine may have led to overdoses. One of the men, Roberto Martinez, told the Daily News that he only met the girls when Alfredo Morales called him to come to the apartment because the women were having seizures. The NY Times has an extensive article about the conflicting thoughts from family and friends about the deaths and how the women met the older men (at Ludlow Street Bar, Dark Room). The ME's office is still working on toxicology tests. more ›

more ›