Fatal drug overdose investigated
Another day, another apparent deadly overdose case in Butler County.
But the death of 44-year-old Gregory A. Gilliland comes with a pair of peculiar twists.
Gilliland died Tuesday in a spare bedroom at a home in Butler where he had gone for a place to stay the night, authorities said.
Butler police suspect he succumbed to a heroin-related overdose at the same house on North Chestnut Street where a woman died last month of an overdose.
But that's not the only oddity.
Earlier this year, Gilliland found himself in the middle of a new countywide crime-fighting property-confiscation program.
The first property targeted by the Butler County District Attorney's Office, which implemented the program, was the identified drug house on American Avenue in Butler where he was living.
While authorities await the results of toxicology and other post-autopsy tests to determine the cause of Gilliland's death, investigators said it appears to be a drug overdose.
Butler police said Gilliland showed up about 1 a.m. Tuesday at Daniel Martin's house in the 400 block of North Chestnut Street.
“He asked (Martin) if he could stay there because he had no place else to go,” police Lt. Detective Anthony Fatta said of Gilliland.
At 10:29 a.m., Martin made a call to 911.
“He said he had gotten up and went to wake up Gilliland but got no response,” Fatta said.
Police found his body in one of the home's bedrooms. Soon after, Butler County Chief Deputy Coroner John Hanovick pronounced Gilliland dead at the scene.
A search of his pants pockets, police said, turned up two syringes and an empty stamp bag of suspected heroin.
The bag was blue and had no name or other markings on it, according to Fatta.
An autopsy was conducted Tuesday. Fatta said it could be several weeks before police receive the final autopsy report that is expected to include a cause of death.
At the time of his death, Gilliland was awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges. County narcotics officers accused him of selling heroin to a police informant in February at his then-home in the 200 block of American Avenue.
He was arrested at the house in March during a Butler County Drug Task Force raid, which followed a 10-month investigation into suspected drug activity there.
Investigators said heroin and crack cocaine were being sold by Gilliland and others he allowed at the home.
Just weeks after the raid, District Attorney Richard Goldinger initiated civil forfeiture action to seize the house, which was then owned by Gilliland's parents.
Goldinger, in court papers, deemed the two-story house “derivative contraband” of the city's drug trade.Gary and Marlene Gilliland of Oakland Township said they bought the house three years ago for their son. In previous interviews with the Butler Eagle, the couple said they had no knowledge that their son was dealing drugs there.The civil action subsequently led to a court order in which the couple agreed to sell the house and provide the district attorney's office $5,000 from the proceeds, which would cover task force expenses in the investigation.The Gillilands on May 18 sold the house for $38,000, according to records at the county's assessment office.Police, meanwhile said they continue to investigate both Gregory Gilliland's and Jessica Martin's deaths.The call this week to Daniel Martin's house was the second one in consecutive months for police and the coroner's office. His wife, Jessica J. Martin, 38, died there of a drug overdose Sept. 3.Butler police Deputy Chief David Adam said officers were called at 9:20 p.m. to the house after Martin awoke to find his wife apparently dead in the couple's bedroom.He told police that he had fallen asleep on the couch. He later got up and went to check on Jessica.“He found her lying on the floor beside the bed, not breathing,” Butler police Deputy Chief David Adam said.He advised police that he gave Jessica a shot of Narcan, a nasal spray used as an antidote for opiate drug overdoses. He said she was a recovering heroin addict who had recently relapsed.Adam said Martin also told investigators that when he found his wife he also found two empty plain blue stamp bags of heroin. Police later recovered a syringe.Butler Ambulance Service paramedics got there and worked on Martin for several minutes but they could not revive her.An autopsy report, completed Sept. 28, listed her death as “combined drug toxicity.”The drugs in her system, Fatta said, included heroin, cocaine, diazepam, clonazepam and alprazolam.Diazepam is the generic name for Valium, clonazepam is the generic name for Klonopin and alprazolam is the generic name for Xanax. All three drugs are commonly used to treat anxiety disorders.
