The Gilroy community gathered Wednesday to mourn the loss of a man suspected of dying from fentanyl overdose.
Family members say Owen Alonzo was one of four men who were recently found unresponsive inside a home and their message was: get help.
One by one, loved ones spoke about the man some called, “dad”.
“He would always say, ‘I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you.’ And that’s always going to be with me,” said Marisela.
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“Very shocking. Gilroy has been grieving a lot,” said Pastor Jesse Jimenez of Gilroy Victory Church.
The pastor said he knew Alonzo for 35 years.
“Hearing about this news was very disheartening. We’ve known Owen for a long time and he was not a fentanyl user,” said Jimenez. “He may have partied and other things, and fentanyl wasn’t his drug of choice. And it’s unfortunate to hear about his loss. Our loss.”
Pastor Jimenez said in the past week alone, his church conducted four funerals. Some due to drugs.
A couple days ago, investigators said they found four people unresponsive at a home, just north of Gilroy.
Each were given narcan, but three ended up dying. All were in their fifties and family members say Alonzo was one of them.
But, that’s not how they plan to remember him.
“We’re just going to continue to keep him in the bright light and make sure people don’t have the wrong opinion about him,” said one community member. “He was a family man, for sure.”
In the South Bay, there were 125 fentanyl related deaths in 2021.
There were only 25, just two years earlier.
