Lethal ‘Grey Death’ drug appears in Capital Region

ALBANY, N.Y. (WRGB) – An autopsy report hasn’t been completed yet on how 29 year-old Shane Lemperle ended up dead in his Albany County Jail cell, but a substance found in his sock leads investigators to believe it was an overdose on “Grey Death.”

It’s a drug that Sheriff Craig Apple says is new to the area. Sheriffs in Washington, Saratoga, Warren Rensselaer and Fulton counties all say they have never encountered it.

“I would hope that there’s none in the area, but I’m not naive to think it’s not here,” Apple said.

The drug looks like a concrete-colored powder. It can be inhaled, injected or contracted by touching. Apple says even one dose of it can be fatal. He says it could take several doses of Narcan to stabilize someone.

“A lot of addicts want the most powerful drug there is out there, even though there is an extreme risk of death involved,” Apple said.

The cocktail drug is responsible for several overdose deaths in the south. This particular dose tested positive for fentanyl and heroin. It can also be laced with carfentanil, which Is used to tranquilize large animals, and a synthetic opioid called U-47700. Apple says there’s not a set formula out there for it.

“They took pretty much everything they could find and throw it in with some fentanyl and anything they could do to change it up a bit,” Apple said.

Apple says there isn’t a ton of data on this, making it that much harder to track.

“Once you catch up with this formula, they tweak it. so it’s not the same formula and then they call it something else,” Apple said.

The Sheriff’s Office is still investigating how the drug got into the jail. So far no other doses of it have been found at the jail.

Here is a full breakdown of the history of the Grey Death drug.