Michael bought what he thought was cocaine. Two hours later, four people were dead (2025)

In a suburban house on a winter’s Tuesday in Broadmeadows, four friends lay dead in the loungeroom.

One of the dead was sitting upright with his back against the pantry, another was face down at the entrance to the loungeroom, with blood visible under his face like a scene in a Hollywood horror film.

The youngest in the group was just 17.

In the kitchen, police would later find a small beige plate. On it were lines consistent with snorting drugs, with a rolled-up foreign currency note found resting on a stool near the bodies.

On Thursday, a coroner found all four died after inhaling what they thought was cocaine. In fact, the substance had been laced with nitazenes, a class of synthetic opioids that coroner David Ryan said was 100 times more powerful than heroin.

Those killed were Carly Morse, 42, Thomas Vale, 32, Michael Hodgkinson, 37, and Abdul El Sayed, 17.

The inquest heard that Morse had been an early childhood educator before suffering a minor stroke at 22 while pregnant with her daughter. Her mental health later declined after the death of her grandfather and she became addicted to oxycodone. She then separated from her long-term partner and began dating Vale, who lived in a unit in Bicknell Court, Broadmeadows.

Vale grew up in Flowerdale, Reservoir and Whittlesea before leaving school to work as a plasterer. He had a daughter and later began using illicit drugs after receiving a substantial inheritance from his grandfather.

Hodgkinson lived in Coburg and Tasmania as a child before the death of his father in his teens impacted his mental health significantly. He began using drugs and alcohol before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder during a stint in jail for armed robbery with a man named Tarek El Sayed, the inquest heard. Hodgkinson was staying at Vale’s house, off and on, since being released from custody.

Loading

Seventeen-year-old Abdul El Sayed was Tarek El Sayed’s son, the eldest of seven, and he lived between Vale’s house and his mother’s. He had one daughter who was almost one when the 17-year-old died.

A police investigation found Hodgkinson had attempted to source cocaine and MDMA on June 23, 2024, from a contact via the messaging app Signal before travelling to Melbourne’s CBD about 1.30am to collect the purchase.

All outgoing communication then stopped from the four phones from just before 3am.

The cause of death for all four deceased was found to be toxicity to protonitazene, which belongs to the broader class of drugs called nitazenes.

The coroner has called on the Department of Health to consider the effectiveness of nitazene test strips and whether they can be made available to the community as a measure to reduce unintentional overdose.

Nitazene test strips, he said, were an emerging technology that could allow potential drug takers to find out quickly whether they had substances of concern.

“I convey my sincere sympathy to the families of the deceased for their loss,” Ryan said.

Last year, authorities revealed nitazenes had been detected in every state in Australia.

At the time of the Broadmeadows deaths, Associate Professor John Fitzgerald, a drug and alcohol policy expert with the University of Melbourne, said nitazenes were 20 to 50 times more potent than fentanyl.

He said there was “significant concern” they were being sold here mixed with common drugs such as benzodiazepines, making them even more dangerous.

Ryan said nitazenes came in many forms, and people could not tell from the form or appearance of a substance whether it contained nitazenes.

There have been 23 confirmed nitazene overdose deaths recorded by the coroner’s office, he said, with two nitazene overdose deaths in 2021, followed by five in 2022, nine in 2023, and seven in 2024.

“At lower doses they can relieve pain, stress and anxiety while imbuing users with a sense of euphoria. At higher doses, their central nervous system depressant effects can cause sedation, drowsiness and respiratory depression, leading to loss of consciousness and [at high enough doses] death,” Ryan said.

“Nitazenes were developed by the pharmaceutical industry in the 1950s but were practically unknown outside laboratory research settings until around 2019, when they started to appear in unregulated drug markets across Europe and North America. They have since spread to Australia.”

Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association chief executive Chris Christoforou said the deaths highlighted how the unanticipated adulteration of illicit drugs could be fatal, especially with the increasing frequency of potent synthetic opioids in the illicit drug supply.

Loading

Last financial year, he said, the Coroners Court published findings into 601 fatal overdoses.

Christoforou said fatal overdose could be reduced by investing in the right interventions to identify risk and respond quickly.

“It is clear from the evidence provided to the Coroners Court of Victoria that the rapid growth in new novel substances, together with increasing potency and the broad array of substances subject to adulteration, including vapes, sees the risk of another mass overdose event like the one in Broadmeadows continues to remain high,” he said.

Call the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline on 1800 250 015 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.