Grieving Wilton mom offers warning about heroin

Cascone visits her daughter’s gravesite every day. She prays and sings a song. The headstone shows that Katie Lynn Sheidt would be turning 35 on Monday.

Cascone buried Katie in October of 2014. She was 30 when she died of a heroin overdose. The 2002 Saratoga Springs High grad was a certified nurse’s assistant. She’d been clean for about 5 months and was taking care of her ailing grandmother when she had a relapse and ended up dead on her bathroom floor.

Her mother was heartbroken – and still is. The candles she keeps lit at her gravesite are a symbol of her will to prevent others from getting the call that she got. She carries a sign in her car and the rear windshield couldn’t be more straightforward. It reads “HEROIN WILL KILL YOU.” She says we’re hearing a great deal about fentanyl-laced drugs killing people.

“That’s true. It’s deadly. However, a lot of people are dying from heroin and opiates without fentanyl being in their drug — and that includes Katie. There was no fentanyl in her drug.”

Eve Cascone has spoken to school students about the deadly consequences of heroin and says she’d like to start doing it again.

The opioid epidemic isn’t just a danger for overdoses. New research done by an assistant professor at UAlbany shows it’s leading to a higher risk of suicide.

Keith Chan had his findings published in the Journal of Opioid Management. It shows those who misused opioids in the last year were 71 percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts.

They are 95 percent more likely to have a plan to take their own life — and they’re more than twice as likely to have actually attempted suicide.

If you are in crisis, call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The number is 1-800-273-8255.