A substance that 'could be described as illicit narcotics' was recovered, according to the police chief.
Five people were found dead and a four-month-old baby was alive inside an apartment in Colorado that officials suspect was the site of a drug party possibly involving fentanyl.
The bodies of three women and two men were discovered in a unit at North Range Crossings Apartments on East 104th Avenue around 3.45pm on Sunday, said Commerce City Police Chief Clint Nichols, according to the Denver Post.
Another adult and the baby were discovered alive.
A substance that ‘could be described as illicit narcotics’ was recovered from the apartment, Nichols said, adding that more testing was needed to identify it.
‘If it is going to be illicit drugs, they were very, very bad,’ Nichols said. ‘If it was drugs, no one was able to get to a phone and call 911 for a medical emergency. It happened pretty quickly – speculation on my part.’
The deaths were linked to fentanyl use, said Brian Mason, district attorney of Colorado’s 17th Judicial District.
‘No drug is safe right now. People who are taking drugs and not knowing that fentanyl is laced within them are dying,’ Mason told CBS4. ‘Tonight tragically, it appears that five of our fellow citizens died because of it.’
It was a ‘nightmare of a scene’, Mason said.
Two milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
There were no signs of hazardous gases or that the victims were killed violently, Nichols said.
Investigators are not sure if the baby’s parents were present or if the five deceased individuals lived in the unit, he added.
The identities of the victims have not been released, and it is not known whether the infant was a boy or a girl.
A neighbor, Ian Scott, said he heard screaming on Sunday afternoon and saw a woman holding a baby while making a call and appearing ‘high as a kite’.
Scott said he heard music and thumping from the unit on Saturday night through midnight.
‘It was a party,’ he told the Post. ‘I saw what I saw.’
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