Family Of California Teen Girl Suspects She Died Of Fentanyl Overdose

A 17-year-old girl from Fullerton, California who died on Oct. 1, is believed to have succumbed to a fentanyl overdose. Trinity Cornejo’s mother said the drug may have been behind her daughter’s death although autopsy reports are yet to confirm this.

According to ABC 7, Fullerton police are still in the gray on the teenage girl’s cause of death and await findings from the medical examiner’s report. The teen’s mother, Chrisa Cornejo told local media outlets that the girl could have suffered from a fatal dose of fentanyl while partaking with friends. This she believed is the first time her daughter could have tried the drug after she had come home from a party with friends on Sept. 30. She was later found unresponsive by her aunt.

Trinity’s death is under investigation as toxicology results are yet to be released along with reports from the Orange County Coroner. The teenage girl from Troy High School in Fullerton is the third fentanyl-related teen death in the area in less than a month. "I would send her your articles about these issues, and these deaths, and I thought she understood and I thought she would never take that risk, but teenagers are curious and dealing with a lot of pressure," her mother Chrisa said.

The grieving mother weighed heavy on the drug dealers whom she said deliver illegal substances to teens wearing masks and driving around in their cars. Chrisa added that these drugs being circulated are no longer in their pure form and are often laced with something else. She added that these dealers don’t know what they’re doing or that they really don’t care at all what happens to their customers.

“Either way it's just drugs are no longer drugs. What you think you're getting is most likely laced with something else,” she said.

The girl’s mother hoped that her daughter’s death would not be in vain and that other teenagers would learn from Trinity’s tragic death. Based on records of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl overdose has been the leading cause of death in adults between the ages of 18 and 45 years old. In 2021, some 71,000 people have died from overdose using synthetic opioids like fentanyl.