Dunwoody, GA — They’re investigating these drug cases like murder—because they are.

That’s what Dunwoody Police Sgt. Robert Parsons tells WSB about charging accused dealer Antoin Thornton with felony murder.

It was in an apartment complex right across the street from Dunwoody Police headquarters that the 22-year-old victim, a young man who Police Chief Billy Grogan says had been through rehab and was struggling to get clean, overdosed on fentanyl-laced heroin March 18.

Despite the quick firefighter and police response, including CPR and a dose of emergency overdose treatment NARCAN, he could not be revived.

Grogan says they launched an investigation to find the heroin’s source. May 9, three days after an undercover buy, the 28-year-old Thornton was put under arrest.

“If you sell drugs in our community, and those drugs lead to someone’s death, you will be held accountable,“ says Chief Grogan.

A woman, Daja Shaw, was also arrested for charges including drug trafficking.

DeKalb County Assistant District Attorney Lance Cross says prosecutors are not going after addicts or users selling to feed their own habits. Addiction has a ripple effect, he says, on families and communities. This case, so far unindicted, has a unique aspect.

“This is the first one I’ve worked on, the first one I’ve seen, where you’ve got a true non-user— somebody that is strictly making money by putting heroin on the street,” says Cross.

Cross also applauds Dunwoody Police for clearing a major investigative hurdle to bring the charges.

“You have to prove that the heroin that was sold by a specific dealer caused the death of the victim,“ says Cross. “As you can imagine, that can be very difficult.“

Grogan declined to elaborate on how the investigators were able to make the tie.

Georgia attorney general Chris Carr says drug addiction has reached a crisis level.

“In the state of Georgia, 8,000 Georgians died as a result of drug overdoses over the past eight years,” says Carr. “That is larger than the populations of 16 individual counties in our state.“

Carr says in addition to investigation, law enforcement can try to help prevent tragedies like the one in March. He says the website DoseOfRealityGA.org can tell people where to get help, request educational training for groups ranging from sports teams to health centers, or help get rid of unused or expired drugs.

Cross, who has prosecuted similar charges in another metro Atlanta jurisdiction, hopes this case can play a role in the fight against opioids.

“First, this dealer won’t be selling any heroin to anybody else,” he says. “The heroin community, while it’s large, in ways it’s small as well. These folks communicate with each other.

“Hopefully this will have a ripple effect throughout the heroin community that if you are selling drugs that you know can kill someone and they die, you can be prosecuted for murder.“