Prosecutors say there was enough fentanyl found in a Southern California apartment where a chemistry professor died of an overdose last Friday to kill nearly the entire city of San Diego.
Five pounds of fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives were seized from the University City apartment by DEA Narcotics Task Force agents.
Agents also found evidence of a pill press operation, including powders, liquids, dyes and other drugs, according to prosecutors.
The DEA first estimated the amount of fentanyl seized equated to more than 226,000 lethal doses, but on Wednesday Deputy District Attorney Jorge Del Portillo said there was enough fentanyl product in the apartment to kill 1.5 million people.
Fentanyl is 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the DEA. Carfentanyl, a fentanyl analogue also found in the apartment, is 100 times stronger than fentanyl and can be lethal in micro doses.
Portillo said carfentanyl "makes fentanyl look like aspirin."
The DA's office is warning anyone who encounters pills pressed with a cat face or silhouette of a woman that they could contain fentanyl or something worse.
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Police were called to the Canyon Crest Apartments off Genesee Avenue near Eastgate Mall Friday morning after a man and woman overdosed on fentanyl.
The man, identified as Gregory Bodemer -- a former adjunct chemistry professor at Cuyamaca College -- was pronounced dead at the apartment. Bodemer also worked at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from February 2010 to May 2013.
Forty-six-year-old Rose Griffin, who shared the apartment with Bodemer, was taken away in an ambulance and survived. Griffin was arraigned Wednesday on possession and distribution charges.
Griffin told prosecutors she laced her own vaping cartridges with fentanyl. A vaping device was found near Bodemer's body, according to prosecutors.
Police, medics, the DEA and a hazmat crew responded to the apartment after the initial 911 call. It took more than 12 hours for the hazmat crew to decontaminate the unit.
Neighbor Michelle Andretta told NBC 7 Friday she'd recently noticed odd behavior at the apartment. Andretta said Bodemer was once a family man, but said things changed about two years ago when the man’s children and their mother moved out.
