Dennis Thibault, 34, and Sean Thibault, 32, were found dead by their parents, Penny and Jerry Thibault, on June 18, 2015.
Dennis Thibault, 34, died of an overdose in June, 2015. Source: Facebook
The night before, Sean and Dennis had shared their final moments on the porch of an Old North End home. Potent drugs coursing through their blood left them incapacitated, and eventually shut down their nervous systems.
A short time later, the brothers, a year and a half apart in age, and described by their mother as best friends, were both dead.
In an affidavit, Burlington Police Detective Dwayne Mellis painted the heart-rending tableau the parents encountered that morning: “Upon arrival I noticed Dennis was slumped over on a chair facing south while Sean is lying on his left side facing north just east of Dennis’ location on the porch.”
“The picture of their blue, lifeless bodies, playing over and over again in my head, will never leave me peace,” Penny Thibault wrote to reporters. She declined an interview request, but in a lengthy email provided details of her sons’ lives and their deaths.
The medical examiner’s report shows Sean and Dennis died from acute fentanyl intoxication. There were no other drugs present in their system, according to the report.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin. Dealers may cut it into heroin to increase potency or to stretch profits, but increasingly they are selling it to users by itself as heroin, according to law enforcement.
Sean Thibault, 32, died of an overdose in June 2015. Source: Facebook
The ascendance of fentanyl in the drug trade has created a deadly dynamic for drug users who are often unaware that what they’re getting from street dealers isn’t heroin, officials say.
“Fentanyl is much stronger than heroin and can cause even experienced users to overdose,” according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report from June. “Between 2013 and 2014, there was a 79 percent increase in deaths related to synthetic opioids, the category under which fentanyl falls.”
Most fentanyl overdoses are concentrated in the eastern U.S. where white powder heroin is prevalent, according to the DEA report. That’s because fentanyl can be easily cut with or disguised as white powder heroin, the report states.
Last year was the most deadly for opiate overdose in Vermont’s recent history, taking the lives of 76 people in the state. That was driven in part by a dramatic increase in fentanyl-related deaths.
There were five overdose deaths where fentanyl was present in 2010, 18 in 2014, and 29 last year, according to health department figures. The average number of opiate overdoses reported to emergency responders has increased from just over one per day last year to just over two per day this year, Health Commissioner Dr. Harry Chen said this week.
That daily average was likely pushed even higher by events earlier this month in Barre, according to Chen, where fentanyl is suspected to be the cause of nine overdoses in a 50-hour period — one of which was fatal.
‘They hid it very well’
Sean and Dennis had an older brother, and the family of five were all very close. Sean and Dennis’ childhoods were filled with love, sleepover birthday parties and annual camping trips to Little River State Park. The Thibaults’ home was a nexus for neighborhood kids, Penny recalled.
From the time they graduated high school, both Sean and Dennis worked. By the time of their deaths they had built solid middle-class careers. Sean was machinist and Dennis was an information technology worker. Both put money aside in 401(k) retirement savings accounts, according to Penny Thibault.
“The death of my sons came as a terrible shock, but to find that it had been due to a drug overdose sent me reeling. We had no idea they were struggling with an addiction, and neither did their extended families, their employers, or their co-workers. They hid it very well. They were big, strong, high functioning, successful, happy guys,” Penny Thibault said.
Their Facebook pages, which have been converted to digital memorials, show they had many friends, hobbies and favorite sports teams. Sean was musically inclined, sharing videos of himself ripping guitar solos or covering songs by the metal band Megadeth.
In the videos, Sean is tall and towheaded with close-cropped hair. His mother said as a high school wrestler, his look and physique earned him the nickname “The Albino Rhino.”
Dennis can be seen in photos wearing a crew cut with a slightly receding hairline. In one photo, Dennis is with a girlfriend, who declined an interview request, because she said it is still too painful to talk about his death.
The Ward Street home where Sean and Dennis Thibault were discovered by their parents after fatally overdosing. Photo by Morgan True / VTDigger
It’s unclear precisely when Sean and Dennis started using drugs, but police and court records suggest they had begun using heroin by the fall of 2014.
Their overdoses took the family completely by surprise, Penny said.
“It was on that morning that I first heard from the (Burlington Police Department) of a drug bust at that very house the prior November of a roommate. As their mother, you can’t know how far that fall was for me. I will never recover from this,” she said.
The drug bust Penny Thibault refers to was a 2014 case where police discovered 50 bags of heroin inside Dennis’ Ward Street home. Officers determined the drugs belonged to John Nolan, who was living with Dennis at the time, according to court records.
Nolan had become the focus of an investigation after police observed him making drug transactions around the Old North End, according to Detective Sgt. John Couture, who heads the BPD narcotics unit.
Nolan was arrested and charged with possessing and distributing heroin, both felonies. Nolan later accepted a plea deal. The distribution charge was dropped and he pleaded guilty to a possession charge.
During the Nolan case, police didn’t peg Dennis as a drug user, Couture told VTDigger earlier this year. Couture said that if officers thought Dennis Thibault was using drugs, they would have suggested he seek treatment.
“At that point he struck me as someone letting someone else stay on his couch, and it kind of backfired,” Couture said.
Police were aware that people were using heroin at Dennis’ apartment, records show. During the two-month investigation, there were two reported heroin overdoses at 54 Ward St. In one of those incidents, Sean brought the young man who overdosed to his older brother’s apartment, according to a police report.
Neither brother was ever charged with a crime as a result of the investigation. Dennis has no criminal record in Chittenden County, while Sean was convicted in 2003 of driving under the influence.
When Couture spoke with VTDigger in January, he said there was still an active investigation into who sold the drugs that killed Sean and Dennis.
“That’s always the hope is that we can hold the person responsible for providing it accountable,” Couture said.
It appears that investigation has run its course, and no charges were brought in the deaths of Sean or Dennis Thibault.
No charges brought in Thibault brothers’ deaths
On the night the brothers died, Sean exchanged text messages with a heroin dealer who accepted a plea bargain in federal court last week, according to their mother, who provided a transcript of the text messages.
That man, Robert Robidoux, pleaded guilty to an indictment stating that he and another man conspired to distribute heroin from roughly June to August 2015.
Eric Miller Vermont’s U.S. District Attorney. Courtesy photo
Robidoux was previously arrested in 2013 and charged in state court with heroin trafficking. He was later convicted of the lesser charge of heroin possession as part of another plea deal.
U.S. Attorney Eric Miller, whose office handled the Robidoux case, declined to comment on whether Robidoux was investigated in connection with the deaths of Sean and Dennis Thibault, saying his office doesn’t comment on investigations that don’t lead to charges.
Miller said his office brings the most serious charges supported by the evidence uncovered during police investigations.
“I am extraordinarily sorry for the loss Ms. Thibault and her family have suffered. But in this case, as always, we have made charging and plea decisions that are consistent with our very careful examination of all of the available evidence,” Miller said.
Robidoux was arrested and arraigned in federal court earlier this year. He is currently incarcerated at the Northwestern State Correctional Facility, according to the state’s inmate database.
The plea agreement Robidoux accepted carries a sentence of between three and 20 years as well as up to a $1 million fine, and the possibility of restitution to his victims “in an amount determined by the court.” Robidoux is scheduled for a sentencing hearing in December.
Penny said she contacted reporters because she believes prosecutors could have done more to hold someone accountable for the death of her sons.
Meanwhile, Penny said that she and her family continue to grieve their loss.
“I miss them so terribly every single day. They are my first thought upon awakening in the morning, and my last thought before I finally sleep at night,” she wrote.
The post Family shocked by overdose deaths of two brothers appeared first on VTDigger.