ALLEGHANY COUNTY, Va. – A new report by Virginia’s Department of Forensic Science shows that fentanyl is spreading through our communities. As the fentanyl crisis continues, one Alleghany County mother shares her son’s story.
Mother Billie Nicely is not quite sure what to do without her son, Heath, by her side.
Heath Nicely was 27 years old when he died in Jan. 2023.
His mom said he left to meet a woman in West Virginia and never came home.
“My son is not an addict,” Nicely said. “He never had a record of drugs. Anything like that. He just went out there for a date.”
Heath was an army veteran Dealing with PTSD. Billie Nicely said her son would have never taken a pill if he knew fentanyl was in it.
“Me and my son, we would sit there on the news, and we would talk about it,” Nicely said. “Being in the Army, he actually wanted to go to the border and be, you know, help them to stop the war of everybody crossing over because of the fentanyl coming in the country so bad.”
Now Billie is trying to fight that battle on her own.
“The more people you have on your side, the lawmakers and stuff, the more things get done,” Nicely said. “It needs to be dealt with now. Not tomorrow, not yesterday but right now.”
An average of five Virginians die from fentanyl each day, according to the First Lady of Virginia’s “It Only Takes One” campaign.
“Their stories are not over,” Nicely said. “I’m here to tell my son’s story. I’m going to continue this until something’s done until something changes.”
Just over the last calendar year, fentanyl cases submitted to the Virginia Department of Forensic Science jumped from 5,727 to 7,088, an almost 24% increase.