Mary G. Montgomery graduate’s recent fentanyl death leaves family grieving
SEMMES, Ala. ( WKRG ) — One pill is all it took to kill 18-year-old Jayce Ward in August, and his family's world has been turned upside down ever since.
Ward was found dead on Aug. 6 from a suspected fentanyl overdose. Ashley Rowell, Ward's aunt, suspected her nephew thought that he was taking a Percocet the day prior.
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"I was at work when the call came through dispatch, and I could hear the dispatcher receiving information from 911," Rowell, who works in law enforcement, said.
That call to dispatch leaked a dark feeling into Rowell's conscious that something bad had happened, but she didn't know what. Rowell said she went to the locker room to pray.
"When I got up to leave the locker room, I just had this feeling come over me, and I can't explain it. I can't describe it, but I just knew," Rowell said. "And it was confirmed at that time that it was Jayce."
Jayce was the oldest of five siblings and had just graduated from Mary G. Montgomery High School in May. Rowell said Jayce had planned to join the Army in the fall and was in the recruiting process.
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"It happens again every day," Rowell said. "Every day that I wake up, he dies again. He's gone again."
Jayce had a brief struggle with opioids, and Rowell said he had just completed a voluntary 33-day inpatient treatment.
"Within 48 hours of him leaving the facility, he was dead," Rowell said.
On the day of his overdose, Jayce had gone to work. It was there that his uncle, Joel Rowell, said Jayce could have been involved in the wrong crowd. To this day, the person who supplied the drugs to Jayce hasn't been caught.
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"It's hard to know that, you know, the last bad decision that he made, you know, cost him his life," Joel Rowell said. "Just knowing his character, I think it was just bad influences around him."
Jayce's family said they want parents to simply open their eyes. They found out that kids are closer to these drugs than most parents would like to think.
"If it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone," Joel Rowell said.
Previously, Semmes Police Chief Todd Friend told that his department turned all evidence over to the Mobile County Sheriff's Office. Jayce's death is still an active investigation.
