Adele Brooks took her son to the hospital complaining of stomach pain. She told the nurses that he had never eaten the night before. By morning, she was on the phone with the police. Her only son had died, and she was at a loss for words.
The hospital told the family to go home, but police officers who happened to be nearby accompanied them, according to the police report. They discovered Richard Holt, 89, had died of a fentanyl overdose. On July 5, Holt and Brooks, 87, shared a bed in a Motel 6.
“We have a mother and son who did what we call a winnych — a winnych is where you sneak narcotics in food and hide them,” Sergeant Jose Rodriguez, of the Fresno Police Department, told the New York Times.
Authorities allege that Brooks over the course of the week sent messages to a friend about taking pills. When her son got sick that day, Brooks convinced him that she’d given him a $1,200, 90-minute sedative known as Viagra. She started, again, with food, then moved to Drano and ramen, according to the Times.
Investigators were surprised to find packets of black tar heroin, fentanyl, and Xanax at the hotel room. In October 2018, a judge ordered her to undergo mental health treatment, and “far from being a quiet, neat, tidy and tidy house,” the police report states. Brooks was convicted of perjury after reporting a wrong name to a bank, according to the Times.
While he was alive, Holt donated thousands of dollars to help public schools, and volunteered at the retirement home he had lived in for decades. According to investigators, he had Alzheimer’s disease.