Pubdate: Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Source: Detroit News (MI)
Copyright: 2006, The Detroit News
Contact:  http://detnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/126
Author: Jennifer Chambers
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

VICTIM'S TIP LED TO DRUG DEN RAID

Bloomfield teen was arrested and confessed weeks before dying from 
fentanyl overdose.

PONTIAC -- A 17-year-old Bloomfield Township girl who overdosed on 
heroin and fentanyl had provided police in Oakland County with 
information on two men who may be suspects in her death.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said Tuesday that Lauren 
Jolly was arrested by detectives with the county's Narcotics 
Enforcement Team on April 12 for heroin possession in Beverly Hills.

After her arrest, Jolly, with her mother and lawyer present, wrote a 
full confession to police providing details on where she bought her 
drugs and who her suppliers were.

That information led federal drug enforcement officials to brothers 
Donald and James Edgar Coleman, who were arrested Sunday in the raid 
of a Detroit drug house. Authorities say the men may be linked to the 
distribution of drugs laced with fentanyl, a painkiller suspected in 
the deaths of 79 people in Metro Detroit in the past four weeks.

McCabe said Jolly, who was arrested seven days before her 17th 
birthday, was never a police informant.

"She got caught with possession of drugs. She was charged. She 
confessed. As a result of her confession we turned information over 
to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), which took the case 
from there," McCabe said.

Jolly, a junior at Birmingham Groves High School, was under 
surveillance on April 12 when police saw her and a man enter a car at 
Groves High and drive to a motel at Eight Mile and Dequindre.

After a visit to a motel room, Jolly and the man re-entered the car 
and were followed by police, who pulled them over.

McCabe said Jolly had four bundles of heroin, and her companion had 1 
gram. Jolly was later charged as a juvenile in Oakland Circuit Court.

Authorities believe that Jolly died in May at the Detroit drug house 
from a lethal mix of heroin and fentanyl, and her body was placed in 
her car and taken to Eight Mile and Gratiot.

The Coleman brothers were among those arrested in the raid in the 
20000 block of Keating Street, authorities said. A toxicology report 
examining what killed Jolly will take eight to 12 weeks, authorities 
said. No one is charged with her death at this time.
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