WAR ON DRUGS
How heartbroken dad bravely exposed America’s raging opioids epidemic after seeing his son slaughtered in the street
HEARING a firm knock on his front door at 2am, Dan Schneider was struck by a tight, suffocating feeling in his chest.
On the doorstep were two police officers with the news that every parent dreads: his 22-year-old son had been murdered.
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On 14 April, 1999, Danny Jr told his parents that he was going to a friend's house to study, but in reality had been sitting in his truck with a hand full of money, which investigators believe he intended to use to buy crack from a dealer.
Just two days before, he'd come into his father's bedroom and announced he wanted to do something to stop kids taking drugs.
Dan saw that as a sign his "polite, gentle and compassionate" son was drug-free. In retrospect, he sees it as a cry for help.
Now, over two decades later, new Netflix documentary The Pharmacist explores how the brutal killing became a catalyst that saw Dan go from being a dad-of-two living a quiet life, to uncovering the biggest drug epidemic in US history.
$10,000 hunt for killer
Dan and his wife Annie were childhood sweethearts.
They got married at 21, and soon after moved to the small town of Poydras, St Bernard's Parish, New Orleans, where Dan - who worked as a pharmacist - built a two-storey house for the couple and their two children, Kristi and Danny Jr.
On the outside, they were a normal, happy American family.
Danny Jr was an ambitious young man, balancing his studies at Nunez Community College with a night job as a pizza delivery man.
He was in a loving relationship with a girl he planned to marry and had never shown any odd behaviour.
"We had a very happy life together," Dan told . "Then the nightmare happened."
When they were first told their son had been shot down in a drug deal gone wrong, Dan and his wife Annie were in disbelief that he could have been on the streets looking for a hit.
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But appearances can be deceptive. The year before, three other young men in the area had been shot to death while buying drugs, not far from Danny Jr was found.
Despite the worrying tally of deaths in St Bernard's Parish, the police hadn't made any arrests.
Disappointed by the police's efforts, the distraught dad decided to take matters into his own hands and bring the killer to justice.
“The police have the attitude that these kids maybe got what they deserved, but I was determined to get the killer off the street and if the police wasn’t gonna do it, I was gonna do it,” he says.
Together with his wife, Dan, then 49, scoured the streets near the murder scene for clues, asking people for information and offered a $10,000 reward for anyone willing to come forward.
Desperate for answers
Weeks and months went by with no leads, when the pharmacist decided to up his game, striking up conversations with local drug dealers, going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and writing letters to people in the local area.
When they didn't respond, he picked up the phone and called them instead.
After months of silence, Dan caught his big break when a woman answered the phone and said that she had seen the incident and knew the name of the killer - who, coincidentally, was her best friend's son.
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The mother-of-four, not named, lived one block away from the murder scene and had been standing in her driveway watching as 15-year-old Jeffrey Hall picked up his gun and shot Danny Jr in the head.
Dan spoke to her multiple times after the initial call, urging her to tell the police what she had seen.
Eventually, she agreed, but word of her involvement got out, and thugs broke her windows, slashed her tyres and sent threatening notes telling her to "make yourself not exist".
Afraid for her life, the woman was given witness protection and was moved to a secret location until the time of the trial.
The police arrested Jeffrey on 14 May, 2000, who pleaded guilty and was given a 15-year sentence for manslaughter.
"In this not-so-perfect world, it's people like our witness - one by one - telling the truth about what they have seen that will truly make a difference," Dan said in a statement.
'Replacement heroin'
Despite having put his son's killer behind bars, the vigilante pharmacist still felt uneasy - a feeling which only increased as he noticed an increase in young people coming in with prescriptions for heavy opioids.
Opioids are highly addictive chemicals used in legal medications such as morphine, methadone, codeine and oxycodone, but also in illegal narcotics.
Prescription opioids were much easier to acquire than heroin, but provided a similar high when mixed with other drugs.
Oxycodone has been around since the 1920s, but didn't become a 'street drug' until 40 years later, when a stronger version of the drug was released under the name OxyContin, which, when crushed or snorted, can give a high that resembles that of heroin.
The police have the attitude that these kids maybe got what they deserved, but I was determined to get the killer off the street
Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for the under 50s in the US, with 60 per cent involving an opioid.
At this time, the Gulf South was quickly becoming the number one spot for addicts looking for opioids and Dan was watching it taking over his community.
While dealing with the grief of having lost his son to a drug war, Dan felt it was his responsibility to do something so that others wouldn't suffer a similar fate.
But first he needed to find out where people were getting their prescriptions from.
What are opioids?
OPIOIDS are a group of pain-relieving drugs that work with the opioid receptors in your body.
Opioids can be derived from the poppy plant, like morphine, or made synthetically in a laboratory, like Fentanyl.
When used properly and with medical supervision, opioid medications can be used to help control acute pain.
Opioids, when used incorrectly, can be highly addictive.
When taken in high doses, opioids can seriously slow your heart rate and breathing - misuse of the drugs often result in fatal overdose.
Feelings of pleasure derived from taking the drugs at high doses can result in addiction.
According to the , more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids a day.
On their website they describe the misuse of opioids as a "serious national crisis," writing: "The total 'economic burden' of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement."
They attribute the opioid "crisis" to pharmaceutical companies who "reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers" in the 1990s.
Young 'patients' queuing round block until 5am
That same year, a woman named Dr Jacqueline Cleggett, originally from Mississippi, had opened a medical practice around the corner.
Through chats with his customers, Dan found out that the mother-of-three was prescribing pills to predominantly young people who didn't have any symptoms of chronic illness or pain.
He also discovered she was charging over £300 per prescription, including an extra £115 fee for a 'faster service', and that her surgery was often open until 5am.
Concerned, he began refusing customers who came from her to his pharmacy but was told off by his boss, Claude Riche.
Meanwhile OxyContin, which has a high Oxycodone content, was acquiring a reputation as a 'replacement heroin'.
The extra strength drug, often prescribed for cancer patients, is similar to morphine and is released over eight hours but, when crushed, it presents a high risk of overdose.
After a year with no progress, Dan visited Jacqueline's office.
What he found shocked him to the core.
It's difficult to think this but my brain - my life - somehow seems improved because of this tragedy
Young patients were lining the street, desperate to get their hands on a prescription - but the full force of the issue only hit home once Dan spotted the police officer standing guard outside the clinic, apparently moonlighting on a private contract to keep the line in order.
The final straw came when a nursing student who was one of Dan's customers - and whom he had tried to warn off the drugs - died from an OxyContin overdose.
Tired of seeing young people die because of drugs and ineffective work by the police, he launched the "Wicked Witch of the East Project" - a personal mission to bring down Jacqueline's drug peddling business.
"It's difficult to think this," he wrote at the time, "but my brain - my life - somehow seems improved because of this tragedy. I feel more charitable. I'm closer to God.
"I seem to have a purpose, where before the tragedy I was a little depressed or indecisive about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
"I wish it would not have happened. I wish I could go back to where I was and have Danny. But I'm going to try to do good and make the best of things."
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Taking down drug doc's 'pill mill'
In the following months, he talked to Jacqueline's patients, took photos outside of her clinic - which became known as the "pill mill" - and collected evidence that fit into dozens of boxes, before dropping it all off to the IRS and the FBI in January, 2001.
Still, no action was taken.
Deflated and let-down by the community, the police and his fellow medical professionals, Dan had all but given up when he received some good news.
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It was a call from George Papale, a solicitor who worked at Poydras Street law firm and had been investigating claims about Jacqueline.
The pair worked together to build a case to bring down the drug-dealing doctor but it would be another year until they found evidence that was strong enough to present to the medical board.
On 14 February, 2002, Jacqueline was forced to close her clinic and had her licence revoked.
Soon after, she filed for bankruptcy, sold her house and was sued for malpractice.
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Unfortunately, the damage was already done and opioid sales still raged on the streets, as new 'clinics' opened to serve addicts looking for a high.
Nonetheless, eight years after his son's death, Jacqueline was prosecuted and sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty for the crimes she had committed.
"I just hope my son would be proud of what I've done," the pharmacist said.
The Pharmacist is out now on Netflix.
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