Source of Poisoned Cocaine Sought

Narcotics officers are checking confiscated stocks of cocaine in an attempt to trace the source of cocaine laced with cyanide that killed one drug user and may be responsible for causing four others to fall ill, police said Thursday.

Both cocaine and cyanide were found in each of the five victims’ bloodstreams, Lt. Bernard Bailey of the Salt Lake County sheriff’s narcotics division said.

Investigators have no leads apart from the presence of cyanide, and Bailey has appealed for information from the public, promising anonymity and conditional amnesty. “We’re really at a loss,” Bailey said.

Authorities do not believe that the victims were targets of an angry drug dealer. “I would be hesitant to think that, because of the widespread difference in what we know of these people; we cannot connect them socially at all, so I’d have to discount that at this time,” Bailey said.