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It was around lunchtime one Thursday in June when Matthew Barrett, 22, snapped his last selfie with his father — a grainy photo his parents still display in a frame in their living room.

Matthew was starting yet another cycle of recovery from his heroin addiction, and he dropped in to catch up with his father, John Barrett, who works in the banking industry.

As his father recalled, Matthew was in a talkative mood, planning his next steps. He talked about trying to get his old factory job back, and about some dental work he planned to have done.

Then he grabbed his phone and snapped the impromptu selfie. A few hours later, he was dead.

Matthew Barrett was among at least 19 people who died with heroin in their bloodstreams in St. Joseph County last year, making 2014 the area’s deadliest 12-month span yet amid an epidemic of heroin abuse that has public officials scrambling for answers as it destroys lives across age, race and class boundaries.

“The heroin epidemic is something a lot of people don’t realize that’s happening in our area,” said Matthew Barrett’s mother, Linda, an executive in the health care industry. “It’s a public health crisis.”

Through an Access to Public Records Act request, the South Bend Tribune reviewed more than 150 death certificates connected with fatal drug overdoses that were recorded in St. Joseph County between 2009 and 2014.
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