Four Suspected Overdose Deaths in a Week Prompt Robeson County Alert

Four people died in suspected drug overdoses in Robeson County, North Carolina, in the past week, three of them over the weekend, and Sheriff Burnis Wilkins issued a public safety alert Monday warning residents that a more potent supply is moving through the county.

The deaths were spread across Robeson rather than concentrated in one community, occurring in the Pembroke and Maxton area, in eastern Lumberton, and in the Lumber Bridge and St. Pauls area to the north, according to the sheriff's office. Names were withheld out of respect for the families, and the circumstances of each death remain under investigation.

"Four lives lost in one week are four too many," Wilkins said in the alert. "Behind every overdose death is a family, friends, and loved ones left grieving."

A supply warning, not a count

The sheriff's office did not present the four deaths as a completed statistical picture — detectives said they had not yet received information on the deaths from the coroner's office — but as an early warning about what deputies believe is circulating locally. Chief Deputy Damien McLean said the county had recorded a decline in 2024 followed by a slight increase in 2025, and that activity was falling again before this week.

"This week there appears to be a more potent batch of fentanyl and cocaine in this area," McLean said. Over the previous eight weeks, he said, deputies had already charted a steady rise in drug and overdose activity, a pattern the department had been expecting after Fayetteville police, in the county next door, issued their own alert roughly a month earlier.

Lieutenant Hollis McNeill said investigators are also watching for a newer compound. "We knew it was coming about eight months ago," he said. "It's called fluorofentanyl." McNeill said the drug behaves unlike what deputies are used to seeing, causing vomiting and sometimes failing to respond to naloxone. No substance has been publicly confirmed in any of the four deaths, and those cases are now with the sheriff's Criminal Investigations Division and the newly formed Border Belt Drug Task Force, which are working to determine whether the deaths are connected or share a common substance.

What naloxone can and cannot do

Wilkins used the alert to restate the basics of overdose response, with one caveat that matters more as the supply changes: naloxone, widely known by the brand name Narcan, reverses opioid overdoses but does not reverse overdoses involving every type of drug. Anyone who suspects an overdose should administer naloxone if it is available and call 911 immediately, he said, and should not assume a person will recover without emergency care.

The sheriff also asked people who continue to use drugs not to use alone and to keep someone nearby who can recognize an overdose and call for help. "You do not know exactly what substances are in the drugs you are taking or how dangerous they may be," Wilkins said. "The drug dealer is in business to make money and has no care for you or your wellbeing." Naloxone remains available at no cost through state and county distribution programs and through naloxone and Narcan resources.

A sheriff's office that runs its own treatment pipeline

Robeson County's unusual feature is what sits behind the alert. The sheriff's office operates the Substance Abuse Freedom and Education program, or SAFE, which it describes as free, long-term and built around the individual rather than a fixed course of treatment. Referrals through SAFE can connect a person to medical care, rehabilitation and the practical supports that follow.

McNeill described how the program's timeline is set. "It's gonna depend on how long they've been using," he said. "They've been on it for five months or five years; we kinda let a doctor decide how long they're gonna stay on that." Law enforcement agencies that offer treatment rather than only arrest are still a minority nationally, and the program is part of how the department argues that enforcement and recovery can run in parallel. People seeking help can also find medication-assisted treatment and opioid treatment programs across the state.

Investigators also asked residents to feed information back. "They're actually using it; they're actually seeing it better than we are," McNeill said of community reports. "We get the end version: somebody's overdosed, somebody's dead."

The harder message to deliver

Wilkins' alert arrived with a defensive edge, reflecting the argument that rural narcotics units expect to make every time overdose deaths spike. "A lot of people say all we talk about is drugs," McLean said. "Well, if you ask the parents of these four people that's passed, they're gonna say we're not talking about drugs enough."

For Robeson County, the next several weeks will be a test of whether the alert changed behavior. The county has no confirmed substance, no cause of death and no link between the four cases yet. What it does have is a warning that the cocaine and fentanyl available in parts of the county may be stronger than what long-time users are prepared for, and a sheriff's office asking a community to report what it sees while telling the people at highest risk how to survive the night. People affected by opioid use, and their families, can find treatment and support through substance use disorder services.