In every death there is a story, and it is Alfarena McGinty’s job to tell it. For more than two decades she has worked in the Marion County coroner’s office in Indianapolis, a job that requires her to carefully investigate and document the final moments of the city’s dead. There is not much she hasn’t seen.
But about six years ago she started to notice something strange. The opioid crisis was already raging across the country and fatal overdoses were common, and yet she saw a shift taking place. At more and more death scenes she discovered the presence of fentanyl — a powerful synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than morphine.
