Pacific Grove mother grieves loss of her son to fentanyl
PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. (KION-TV)-- A mother did what no parent should have to do: bury their child.
Ashley Callaú said her son Angelo overdosed after taking drugs mixed with fentanyl in March. One of three teens accused of selling fentanyl-laced pills to Monterey County high school students, Benjamin Reily Bliss, was the one who supplied Angelo.
READ MORE: Three teens accused of selling Monterey County students fentanyl make federal court appearances
"I really never thought that someone that was just introduced – 'Hey, this is my friend.' Would be getting him addicted to drugs on purpose to profit off of him," said Ashley. "I think it is awful. Real friends don’t get their friends addicted to make a profit off of them."
Ashley said the two boys met at a skate park in Monterey, where her son loved to frequent, and that Bliss purposely tried to get her son addicted to drugs.
Angelo came clean to his mother earlier this year and admitted to having a drug problem and that he was ready to get help. Ashley took her son to an outpatient program in Salinas, but Angelo relapsed in the week he awaited entry.
Ashley said she wants to honor her son's memory by sharing his story and the warning signs she wishes she had spotted earlier.
"There was a lot of foil sometimes missing, which was kind of weird, and sometimes he would have like a soot on his hands, and I wasn’t really sure what that was about," said Ashley. "When I asked him, of course, he wasn’t going to tell me. I wish I had known sooner."
Her worst fear was finding her son dead one morning, and on March 6, that nightmare became a reality.
"I feel like I need to talk to people about it," said Ashley. "I can't really just sweep it under the rug. Like, oh this didn't happen because it did happen."
Ashley is trying to bring awareness about the dangers of fentanyl, so that what happened to her son never happens to anyone else.
"I felt that the part that was missing was that there wasn’t something immediate, said Ashley. "The part that I’m learning is that with fentanyl and pills is that there needs to be an immediate response."
The fentanyl problem in the United States does not discriminate; if it can happen in Pacific Grove, it can happen anywhere else.
READ MORE: National fentanyl epidemic hits Central Coast
Maybe Angelo's story can save another mother from immense heartbreak.
