COPS are hoping to push for murder charges after nine people died in a horror poisoning in Florida.
The victims – aged between 34 and 67 – were found dead in Gadsden County over the July 4 holiday weekend.
Officers said the unprecedented spike in drug overdoses caused four cardiac arrests and six intubations, Tallahassee Democrat reports.
Two women were found dead in an apartment last Friday, and cops said a passenger died in a car crash after the driver passed out from using drugs.
Cases were reported in the Florida areas of Havana, Gretna, Quincy, and Chattahoochee.
Cops believe the victims died from fentanyl poisoning and are now trying to trace the source of the laced drugs.
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Fentanyl can be 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin – and dealers lace it with other illegal drugs to boost their addictiveness.
In a huge update on the tragic deaths, Young told WFLX: "We're hoping to push these cases to murder cases."
He believes the lethal drugs arrived in the county prepackaged – which means it's possible local dealers weren't aware they were selling fentanyl.
He added: "It's shaken the entire community. I feel their pain.
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"I'm really treating this like we had a hurricane coming into town.
"It means that much to me that we could lose people in such a short period of time."
Young said one of the men treated for an overdose on Friday was released from a hospital Sunday – only to return after another overdose on Tuesday.
He said: "This is the scary part. These people, even with the fear of the fentanyl and that they could die, they're still going to take a chance going out there and getting these drugs.
"These are some of the addicts that are truly, truly addicted."
County Commission Chairman Ron Green said one of the victims of the mass poisoning was a woman in her 60s – and her children had no idea she was taking opioids.
Green said: "They didn't even realize their mother was using again. This brought an alarming notice to them.
"Unfortunately, it's too late."
Three months ago, the US Drug Enforcement Administration issued a warning about what it dubbed "mass-overdose events".
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Jennifer Travieso, from DISC Village, a nonprofit drug treatment center, said: "In these last six months I've seen the most overdoses that I've ever seen since I've been working here.
"It's definitely fentanyl and it's in drugs we wouldn't expect it to be in, for example cocaine or marijuana or methamphetamines."
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