A UNC student OD'd on Duke campus, and it took a student journalist to bring the story to light

On March 9, 2023, a freshman from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill overdosed on fentanyl outside a Duke University dorm.

She died in a hospital two days later, surrounded by family and friends, according to her obituary.

Very few people knew about her death, until a Duke student journalist started investigating, learning that 19-year-old Grace Burton wasn’t the only UNC student or alum to recently die from fentanyl poisoning.

She wasn’t even the only one to lose her life to an overdose that week. Now federal agents say the same person supplied the drugs to both students.

Duke student and journalist Charlotte Kramon heard about Burton’s on-campus death and figured more information would come out publicly.

But, she says, “There was no announcement; there were very few people outside of some of those who were close to the situation that knew.”

Kramon started looking into the death and charges related to it, publishing her findings along with co-author Michael Hewlett in the online magazine The Assembly.

Documents show timeline of overdose on Duke campus

Court documents reveal details of the early morning hours of March 9 outside the Kilgo residence hall on Duke’s campus.

Federal court filings say UNC-Chapel Hill freshman and Charlotte native Elizabeth Grace Burton met up with Duke student Patrick Rowland after a party. She contacted Cye Frasier, known as “the Barber” to some students, to buy cocaine, and the documents say campus surveillance video shows a vehicle Frasier was known to drive pulling up outside the Kilgo dorm at Duke around 4:30 that morning.

About an hour later, between 5:45 and 6 a.m., federal investigators say Rowland called Frasier back saying that Burton was “wobbly on her feet” and “unsteady.” Video from inside the dorm shows Frasier carrying Burton up the stairway to a room where paramedics responded just before 6:30 that morning.

Burton died two days later.

She had been an Honors Carolina Scholar and was already assured admission to the Kenan-Flagler Business School, according to her family. She had recently been elected “director of sisterhood” for Zeta Tau Alpha, the sorority she had joined in the fall. In a social post, the sorority quoted her close friend SK Henderson, saying, “Grace had the best smile and attitude. She was hilarious and didn't fail to make anyone laugh. But, most importantly, she was intentional.”

Drug charges, two deaths linked to 'the barber'

No one has been charged directly in Burton’s death, but both Frasier and Rowland face federal charges for drug distribution.

A court document states "a review of the text messages, over a span of roughly seven months Rowland used his cellular phone to buy approximately 7.5 grams of cocaine hydrochloride and 29 ounces of marihuana from "Barber Durham."

In the weeks before Burton’s death, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, with the assistance of the DEA, already had their eyes on Frasier, according to federal court filings. On February 23, 2023, they set up a drug purchase from Frasier using a confidential informant. Frasier’s girlfriend, Calisa Allen, delivered drugs to that informant, investigators reported.

Two weeks later, Burton would overdose, and a DEA special agent would talk with Duke University Police about her death. A few days after that, Raleigh Police would contact that agent about the overdose death of another person linked to Frasier.

Court documents say, “The Raleigh student was found dead on March 10, 2023. When the victim was located, the victim had scattered around his body about 3 plastic packages, basically tiny Ziploc-style packages, two that were empty and one that was half full of white powder.” A Raleigh detective said this person “had communicated with the number known to be used” by Frasier on March 4 and 8, 2023, negotiating cocaine purchases.

Kramon was able to identify that person as Joshua Zinner, a former UNC-Wilmington student living in Raleigh, and the Wake County death certificate for Zinner lists his date of death as March 10, 2023. His cause of death is listed as “pending.”

Four fentanyl deaths in UNC community

According to a UNC Chapel Hill student affairs leader, Burton’s death from fentanyl was not the first the university has dealt with recently.

WUNC reported that Dean Blackburn, director of student wellness at UNC Chapel Hill, spoke to a meeting of the university’s Board of Trustees recently, saying, “I want to share a shocking statistic with you, that I hope you find shocking. It is for me. In the last 20 months, we have lost three active students and one young alum to fentanyl poisoning. And I use that term specifically; not ‘overdose’ because our students and alum were not using fentanyl.

“They were using other substances that were laced with fentanyl, and they did not know that. And the result of that poisoning was their death and our loss.”

Kramon said that Burton's death is likely not a one-off.

“Fraternities and sororities on college campuses, especially UNC and Duke … it is very commonplace, and people are just surrounded by cocaine use and, obviously, alcohol use all the time.

“This is a lot, a lot more common than some people would expect,” she said. “Although I think people within Greek Life think it's absolutely tragic, and also not the most surprising thing that's ever happened.”

Neither university made student's overdose death public

Kramon, the Duke senior and recent LA Times intern who first investigated this story, says the location of Burton's overdose and where she was a student was part of why it wasn’t brought to the public’s attention.

“Duke said that they didn't say anything because it was a UNC student. And so it was UNC's prerogative to say something. And then UNC said that they didn't say anything because the family wanted to keep it private,” Kramon said. “It's so important for people to know these things, especially when it is happening, so, so close to us.”