By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

KINGFIELD – Police said the deaths of two young men last week in Kingfield and North Anson appear to involve drugs but may not be connected.

Samuel Hayes, 23, was discovered by his roommate in their apartment above Anni’s Market on Main Street around 9 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23. Hayes was having difficulty breathing, and his roommate, with instructions from a Franklin County dispatcher, attempted to revive him. Hayes died in the ambulance en route to Franklin Memorial Hospital, according to Franklin County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Niles Yeaton on Thursday.

About an hour earlier the same evening, Deputy Niles Bowman of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department was called to the scene of a street fight in North Anson. He found emergency medical personnel trying to revive 25-year-old Lamont Cowan in a camper where he was living. Cowan died.

Although both deaths appear to be drug-related, toxicology test results will not be available for about four weeks, according to Yeaton. Both men are suspected of using prescription drugs: a lethal combination of drugs in Cowan’s case, drugs with alcohol in Hayes’ case.

“It’s a very unfortunate thing,” Bowman said Friday of Cowan’s death, adding that it was one of the most difficult cases he has ever handled.

Although it appears the two cases are unrelated, police are continuing to study whether there was any connection between the two incidents.

Yeaton said there has been a rise in illegal prescription drug use. In addition, it is not unusual for someone to take a prescription that is different from what they think they are taking.

During a drug sting operation in Franklin County in spring, an informant buying drugs from alleged area dealers came back with different prescriptions than what he was told he purchased, he said.

“Prescription drugs are a major, major problem in this county. It’s a crisis going on here,” he said. “People are passing pills around and nobody knows what they’re getting or selling.”