The detectives traced the heroin to Scott Fisher, Bethany's 20-year-old boyfriend. Hamel began making undercover buys from Fisher and eventually arrested him.
Fisher, now serving a 12-year federal prison term in Allenwood, Pa., recalls that time with sadness.
"I wish I had made different choices," he said in a telephone interview from prison. Heroin and cocaine "were so easy to obtain. It was just always easy. And it seemed like everyone was using."
Bethany's family saw him as a victim. "Scott was just a kid who got caught up in this whole thing," said Lachance, Bethany's sister. "It was a tragedy not only for our family but for him."
The SNIF detectives also tracked down Fisher's source, Juan Delacruz, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic who worked in Lawrence as a drug runner. Delacruz is serving an eight-year sentence. The drug boss, a man known by the street name King Louie, returned to the Dominican Republic, authorities said.
For the SNIF detectives, that was the first battle in an escalating war.
Hamel unlocked the Kittery police evidence locker recently, revealing piles of yellow envelopes stuffed with heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, chalky "re-rock" cocaine and tablets of OxyContin and other prescription drugs.
Each envelope represented a recent arrest -- the fruits of a small band of detectives on a mission.
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scott.kraft@latimes.com
