BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Laurie Brinkly said the same encampment that was tied to a major drug bust, where police seized 10 kilos of fentanyl, is the same compound her daughter, Shawna Burnett, was living in when she died. Brinkly said she found out last month her daughter was gone. Burnett was only 38 years old.
“Every day we worried about if she was going to be dead or not, that was our greatest fear,” Brinkly said.
She described her daughter as a loving wife and mother before the drugs took over.
“She had a sparkle in her eye, she was a loving mother, good wife, she wanted to help people, just a wonderful all-around human,” Brinkly said.
Brinkly told us that her daughter was trying to help her boyfriend get clean and became addicted herself.
“They told her if you want me to be clean you have to do drugs with me and then get clean with me and continued giving her the drugs and she overdosed on August 10,” she said.
The amount of fentanyl deputies seized during the arrest of a man who allegedly lived in the encampment, was enough, they say, to kill the entire population of Bellingham. Officials also rescued 13 dogs from the compound. All of them were sent to the Whatcom Humane Society. The coroner hasn’t released Burnett’s official cause of death but her mom is certain she already knows the answer.
“We’re a hundred percent sure it’s fentanyl, that was her drug of choice,” Brinkly said.
Despite the major bust and the encampment’s history of crime, it is still there.
“I don’t know what the answer is, this was heartbreaking. I don’t know if they need to sweep because Shawna said there were a lot of women and children there, but the drugs need to be off the streets,” Brinkly said.
We reached out to the city of Bellingham on if they plan to remove the encampment and are waiting to hear back.
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