David Carson Photojournalist

Projects and Stories: Heroin in St. Louis

  • After kissing the tips of her fingers Vanessa Riley reaches out to touch the box containing the ashes Dante Bonzano, father to her three children, as she goes to bed for the night at her home in south St. Louis on Thursday, April 6, 2017. Riley keeps the ashes on her nightstand next to a box of his personal items because she says she hasn't gotten used to the idea he's gone. Bonzano had been on Vivitrol to help him control his addiction to heroin. He died on February 8, 2017 of an apparent overdose. In 2016 273 city residents last year, more than double the previous year, died of fatal opioid overdoses. Heroin is being cut with fentanyl to increase the high but the fentanyl is so powerful it leading to a sharp increase in deaths from overdoses.
  • A discarded syringe is left in an alley behind a dilapidated apartment building on South Grand Boulevard in St. Louis on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. A year earlier, heroin user Eric Bearden, 28, died of a heroin overdose inside the apartment building. The alley is still known for it's drug use.
  • Richard Skinner and Ashley Johnston walk to Johnston's home to wash his clothes and shoot heroin in St. Louis on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. Johnston and Skinner have a 12-year-old child together that is cared for by Johnston's mother. The two are still attracted to each other but Johnston is currently six months pregnant with another man's child.
  • Ashley Johnston and Richard Skinner shoot heroin in the kitchen of Johnston's home in St. Louis on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. Both have used heroin off and on for years. Johnston, who is six months pregnant with her fourth child, is trying to kick her habit with methadone, but recently missed a few methadone doses because of car problems. Skinner says he uses his stints in jail to get clean. Johnston and Skinner have one child together. Johnston and Skinner's child is cared for Johnston's mother who also cares for Johnston's other two children. In 2016 273 city residents last year, more than double the previous year, died of fatal opioid overdoses. Heroin is being cut with fentanyl to increase the high but the fentanyl is so powerful it leading to a sharp increase in deaths from overdoses.
  • Richard Skinner shoots heroin on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, into a vein near a tattoo he got during a stint in prison years earlier. {quote}Heroin is the only thing that ever stole my soul. I'm not me any more{quote} says Skinner. Skinner who had to be revived by paramedics from a a near fatal overdose just a few weeks ago {quote}Death ain't nothing to me anymore{quote}
  • Richard Skinner sinks back into a chair as the heroin he just shot takes affect.
  • People line up outside the St. Louis Metro Treatment Center at 5 a.m. to get their daily dose of methadone on Monday, April 3, 2017. The clinic opens it's doors to clients at 5:15 am, many in line come early because they need to their dose before going to work for the day.
  • Maria Torres, 44, holds a picture on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017 of her deceased husband Allen Goins who died of acute fentanyl intoxication on in February of 2016. Goins was one of more than 270 fatal opioid overdoses that happened in the city of St. Louis in 2016. The boy pictured with Goins is Dominic Torres, the son of Maria and Goins.
  • Travis Garner, 3, goes high on the swings as his aunt Josie Martinez prepares to give Travis's sister Amya Garner, 8 months, a push at South St. Louis Square Park in St. Louis on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017. Martinez takes the children to the park often but makes Travis wait on a bench until she makes sure the playground is free of dirty syringes.
  • {quote}I died. Death you never no when its going to come, you don't even know if it will take you{quote} is printed in a the journal of a heroin addict. The addict who did not want to be identified says he wrote the journal entry after he had a near fatal overdose the previous month.
  • Richard Skinner looks for heroin residue inside a gel cap that previously held the drug on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017. {quote}I'm still sick,{quote} says Skinner who has not had a dose of heroin since the night before and doesn't have money to buy more on this morning. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
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  • Richard Skinner shoots a mix of heroin and meth called a speedball in a quiet spot of cemetery in south St. Louis on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. {quote}Death ain't nothing to me anymore{quote} says Skinner who had to be revived by paramedics from a a near fatal overdose just a few weeks ago. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
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  • Camden, 4 months, is snuggled by his mother Amanda Davis in their private room at a Queen of Peace Center maternity home in the College Hill neighborhood of St. Louis on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Davis, a recovering heroin addict, entered the Queen of Peace program to help her kick her heroin addiction when she found out she was pregnant with Camden. She is taking weekly drug tests now to prove that she is clean and will soon be moving into her own apartment. Her hope is after proving she is clean and moving into her own apartment she'll be able to regain custody of her other children that were taken away by the state when she was using drugs.
  • Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
  • After a probation violation hearing Richard Skinner is lead away from court on April 4, 2017. Skinner was arrested a few weeks earlier when police spotted him in an alley as he was going through a bag of jewelry he says he {quote}found{quote} in a vacant building. When police ran Skinner's name a warrant for his arrested popped up for a probation violation. Skinner has bounced in and out of both federal and state prisons for most of his adult. He says prison time doesn't bother him and that in a way it's good because he is able to get clean from drugs while he is behind bars.
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