by Laurence Hammack | Aug 11, 2002 | Addiction/drug abuse
GALAX — Ralph Cockrill has just taken his daily dose of a drug that killed 44 people in Western Virginia last year. And he’s never felt better. Cockrill is on methadone – a double-edged narcotic that can be a curse for the drug abuser he used to be...
by Laurence Hammack | Jun 28, 2002 | Prisons
BLAND — Six inmates stood at the edge of the prison yard, waiting like expectant fathers. A white van pulled up to the gate of Bland Correctional Center. Karen Hough stepped out. “I’m so excited I could cry,” she said. Hough swung open the van...
by Laurence Hammack | May 6, 2002 | Miscellaneous (mostly animals)
HURLEY — Standing on a carpet of mud, Patsy Stevens measured her losses by the brown line that ran around her living room walls. The line, about 4 1/2 feet from the floor, marked the height of the floodwaters that invaded her double-wide mobile home. Everything...
by Laurence Hammack | Dec 9, 2001 | Prisons
HICKORY FLATS — From a hillside near his Lee County farm, Edgar Fannon gazes at a sprawling complex of concrete bunkers and razor wire, not quite sure what to make of his new neighbor. Below him, a huge federal prison is as quiet as it will ever be. The last...
by Laurence Hammack | Jul 24, 2001 | Addiction/drug abuse
TAZEWELL — Ground up in a spoon, mixed with water and drawn into a needle, one OxyContin pill is as dangerous as a loaded gun. So when Nicholas Dickerson died from an overdose of the prescription painkiller, Tazewell County authorities figured that the man who...