Alyssa West was on the move the moment her tiny feet touched the ground, her mother, Kim Bohaty remembered. For the rest of her life, she kept running, picking up speed in the wrong direction.
Alyssa died of an opioid overdose May 22, 2022, in Grand Island. The pill was laced with fentanyl. She was 17.
“You essentially handed a loaded gun to somebody and said, ‘Test it,’” Hall County District Court Judge Andrew Butler later told her accused drug seller. “You’ve hurt numerous people because of all this. Yourself, Ms. West and her family, your family.”
A lot of people know Alyssa. She’s the face on the fentanyl awareness billboard on South Locust Street. She’s smiling with a full face of makeup. Cosmetology was one of her passions. Still, eyelashes and all, it’s easy to tell she’s just a kid.
“Fentanyl steals our families,” the billboard states.
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Kim knows it.
“I feel like a lot of people don't understand how I feel,” she said. “And I feel like I should be getting better and I should just be OK by now.”
Alyssa’s troubles began at about age 12, Kim said, when she was molested. After the abuse, Alyssa started drinking “a lot,” her mother said. “She just wasn't the same.”
“She’d been in and out of a lot of different places ever since that happened,” Kim said of her daughter’s frequent group home and treatment center stays.
Before she died, Kim said “I had begged her probation officer for a month and a half to send her to treatment. She had an ankle monitor on; she'd still run away. She wouldn't go to class.”
Kim said she was told they had to try other resources first.
“I said, ‘I know my daughter. And I know if she doesn't get help now it's going to be worse,’” Kim said.
Initially, Alyssa’s main source of official trouble was skipping classes, Kim said. The truancy troubles continued, especially after she was put on probation for her lack of attendance.
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Emma Harris says she is alive today because of Alyssa.
They met at a group home in Seward.
“We were roommates for about two and a half weeks. We tried to run away, so we had to be in split rooms,” Emma said.
Emma said of her friend: “Some of our memories aren't positive memories.”
“I almost overdosed and she saved my life.”
The two were separated after their escape attempt. Maybe it was fate, but Alyssa found her friend in the bathroom.
“At the time, I was really addicted, taking over-the-counter cough medicine,” she remembered.
It was easy to get, Emma said. After all, “If you were locked up, it was kind of hard to get stuff.”
Emma got a hold of her drug of choice, and later found herself lying on the floor of the group home’s bathroom.
“I wouldn’t say I was overdosing, but I was really close.”
Alyssa went looking for her “sister,” Emma said.
“She knew I was high.”
Alyssa lifted her friend from the floor and splashed water in Emma’s face.
“We ended up getting in trouble for being under the influence.”
Alyssa and her family helped Emma in other ways, including lending her clothes to wear and providing a place to stay.
“I called (Alyssa) my sister most of the time, because I really didn't have family that cared about me the way that she cared about me,” Emma said.
Accounts vary about what drugs Alyssa used.
“I feel like Alyssa was just kind of whatever, tried a little bit of everything,” Emma said. “She was experimental.”
Araceli Alvarez said she remembers her friend’s struggles. “(Alyssa) had some rough patches, I mean, everyone (does), but I never thought that I would hear that she overdosed on pills, let alone fentanyl.”
Kim said she knows assumptions are being made. “People think, oh, just another drug addict.”
Grand Island Police Department Investigator Brandon Kirkley said he followed the facts.
“I know on that day - on May 22, 2022, Alyssa ingested fentanyl,” he said. “Maybe that was her first time. I have no idea. It could have been. I know her friend, it wasn't her first time.”
There are a lot of misconceptions about addiction. Kirkley was the lead investigator for Alyssa’s case.
“A thing that a lot of people don't realize, including law enforcement, is that we don't ‘learn.’ It's a chemical addiction, and you don't learn from that. You have to be treated for it,” Kirkley, a former drug investigator, said.
“I know all that now, because I worked with drugs for seven years. My eyes were opened. They’re not bad people," Kirkley said. "There's something else going on.”
Araceli said Alyssa knew she shouldn’t be using drugs. Numerous sources, including Araceli, said Alyssa was trying to get back on track.
“She was trying to better herself, and learning from her mistakes,” Araceli said. “I think she's seen a lot. She didn't want to turn out like all these other people on drugs. She wanted better for her life.”
Emma said it all leaves her frustrated. “Addiction is so weird, and I hate it so much.”
*****
Rumors abound as to why Alyssa West went to “Paco Green” for drugs. The girl with Alyssa that night knew Paco well and had a history, several sources said.
Alyssa’s companion that night declined The Independent’s later request for an interview.
“A lot of the misconceptions and all this viral misinformation came out on social media,” Kirkley said. “They can afford to do all the guessing and come up with these theories, where we can't. We go by what the evidence says.”
What officials do know is that on May 22, 2022, emergency responders arrived at a home in the 1100 block of Evans Street in Grand Island, where they found an overdose victim and another young woman. Grand Island Fire Department responders at the scene noticed drug paraphernalia, according to Kirkley.
“(The Grand Island Police Department’s) patrol division … collected some evidence,” Kirkley said. “They more or less treated it kind of like a crime scene.”
This is typical when reporting to the scene of a drug overdose, Kirkley said.
Alyssa’s companion that evening was cooperative, to a degree.
“She was a key witness. She never was a suspect,” Kirkley said. “I tried to tell her that so many times, listen, we just want to get to the bottom of this. You're not in any trouble.”
That’s because of Nebraska’s Good Samaritan Law. It protects the person at the scene of an emergency if they make a good faith request for emergency medical services, remain on the scene until first responders arrive and cooperate with officials and EMS.
“It’s so important for the people who are with the person who overdosed or even found the person who overdosed to provide information to law enforcement,” Kirkley said. “Whether or not (the individual with Alyssa) was truthful, nobody knew at the time yet, but she at least cooperated.”
Dr. Anthony Cook, emergency room medical director for CHI Health St. Francis, called the opioid high “euphoric.”
Death is often “a symptom of the overdose,” Dr. Cook said. He explained that typically death comes from choking. Maybe on saliva, sometimes vomit.
In a Snapchat conversation with another individual, Paco Green seemed flippant about the pills he sold Alyssa, saying: “It was these news ones [pills] I got she should’ve know(n) the tolerance. She (is) stupid for that.”
*****
The handle Paco Green — eventually identified as Daniel Cervantes, age 17 at the time of his arrest — had been tossed around a lot on social media regarding opioid transactions, police found.
“When people don't talk to us with their mouths, we can at least figure out what's going on with their phones,” Kirkley said.
When a search warrant — spurred in large part by Alyssa’s overdose at the separate location — was served, evidence indicating drug sales and use were scattered about the Cervantes’s residence, Kirkley said.
The house at 311 E. Sixth St. was condemned before the search warrant was fully executed by officers outfitted head to toe in Tyvek gear.
“It was gnarly,” Kirkley recalled.
According to court documents, law enforcement found 26 light blue pills, imprinted with M30, and the anti-opioid overdose medication Narcan in a desk.
“The Narcan was actually on top of the pills,” Kirkley testified in court. “I lifted up the Narcan and there were the pills.”
The pills, which appeared to be Percosets, tested positive for fentanyl.
Police also found a package of roughly 35 grams of marijuana, digital scales, a drug ledger and two firearms. In court testimony, Kirkley noted a rifle was propped up in the corner of Cervantes’s bedroom and an AR-type rifle was on the floor.
The bedroom was littered with burnt tin foil and straws. That’s how Grand Island juveniles tend to consume pills, Kirkley said in court.
“They smoke them by inhaling the vapors … off the aluminum foils through some type of straws….
“In Mr. Cervantes’s case, he liked to use dollar bills.”
Cervantes had $700 in his pocket when he was taken into custody, according to court transcripts.
“Lowkey feel bad,” Cervantes said in a different Snapchat exchange about the overdose death. “They should know they [sic] limits by now.”
“(I) Ain’t tripping,” he said.
*****
Through the fog of mourning, Kim said she feels pangs of self-consciousness.
“I hate it because I feel like no matter where I go, I see people whispering to each other like, oh, that's her. She's the mom of the girl that overdosed.”
“I feel like people blame me,” she said.
Social media has been brutal. Kim rattles off several blame game favorites. “Where was her mother? Why was she not watching her? She obviously needed better parenting,” she said flatly.
“People don't realize, like, I did everything I could. I knew where Alyssa was going. I knew I could shut her phone off anytime. I had a camera in my house.”
Emma is incredulous.
“Alyssa was 17 years old. Two more years, she would have been out on her own. She wasn't 10. (Kim) can't hold her hand for the rest of her life. No.
“People were thinking Kim was a bad mom. She wasn't a bad mom. She literally gave Alyssa the world and more. We’re kids. We go behind our parents’ backs.”
*****
Colette Evans, health projects manager for the Central District Health Department, said “I think sometimes people just blow it off, maybe because it's ‘just’ a drug user.”
It isn’t, she says adamantly.
“This is a daughter, friend, sister. This is somebody who was loved deeply. We lack an awareness in our community.”
“That girl could have been anybody's daughter,” Evans said. “I think about how much (Alyssa’s family has) been through. And then, for Kim to be willing to talk about this. One of the things that I stir around in my head so often is, we need to talk about it.”
Kim said she tries.
“I really feel like I'm the only one here in Grand Island that's posting about it and determined to try and fix it.”
”It comes down to a lot of awareness, education, obviously certainly in the school starting at home,” Dr. Cook said. “Too often it takes something really bad happening before people pay attention.”
“We have a lot more overdoses that the media doesn't even know about,” Kirkley said.
Dr. Cook says his ER sees about one overdose a day. He estimates 75% of them have been opioid-related.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data states there were 174 unintentional drug overdose deaths in Nebraska in 2021, the latest year with available data. The state’s drug overdose death rate was 9.4 per 100,000 total population, lowest in the country, but still higher than 2020, when the state had 160 overdoses for a rate of 8.6. Of the 174 in 2021, 106 were opioid-related.
“Over the past two years, we've really seen a spike in these overdose cases,” Dr. Cook said. “Right before COVID we started to see an increase and definitely a burst among adults. Now it's spread to the children.”
*****
Alyssa’s overdose was essentially Kirkley’s first assignment as a general investigator, after working drug investigations in years prior.
“My boss basically said, ‘Hey, welcome back to investigations. Here's your first case. It's a 17-year-old’s overdose death and you're not working on anything else until you get this solved,’” Kirkley recalled. “I breathed and lived Alyssa West.”
In November 2022, Cervantes was sentenced for possession of a firearm with two felony drug violations. Cervantes was not charged in connection with Alyssa’s death. Kirkley explained that in Nebraska, there is no legal avenue to hold drug dealers directly responsible for overdose deaths.
Despite facing no charges for Alyssa’s death, Cervantes’s role was addressed during sentencing. There were more than 30 victim impact letters submitted to the court, the vast majority regarding Alyssa’s death.
“I am not going to read them all today in court, but I have read every single word that was written down,” Butler said during sentencing.
“I don’t know if you’ve read them all,” the judge said to Cervantes. “I hope you’ve read them all.”
Cervantes, by then 18 years old, received 35–45 years for his charges.
“I knew he’d get some time. But 35 to 45 years … that's unheard of for a drug dealer,” Kirkley said. “I don’t know if (Kim) understands how huge (that is).”
Some, including Emma, say that’s not enough.
“I'm mad at the justice system — it failed her once again. More teenage lives and once again, nothing is happening with a guy who just got drug charges,” she said.
“There's no mechanism in the state of Nebraska to charge a drug dealer with manslaughter or murder or anything like that, and that was what a lot of Alyssa’s family wanted,” Kirkley said.
Emma said she is confused … lost.
“I don't know. I really don't know who to blame anymore.”
So instead she tells Alyssa’s story.
“I love talking about her. I love telling about how great of a person she was. It's one of my favorite things to do now, honestly, like I just can't stop talking about it. It's probably not healthy,” Emma said.
“At the same time, it's better because the first two months she passed away, I just shut completely down. I just isolated myself.”
Emma stopped using drugs after Alyssa’s death.
“I'm working again. I'm just trying to slowly build a future for myself,” she said. “Because I know that's what Alyssa would want.”