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Police: Heroin injection led to drug, assault charges

By Nathan Baker

A county man appeared in court Tuesday on drug- and assault-related charges after authorities said he helped inject a North Carolina man with heroin in his home, nearly causing the man’s death.

Thomas Dewey Perry, 54, 138 Highway 91, Elizabethton, appeared in General Sessions Court Tuesday on charges of aggravated assault, tampering with evidence and casual exchange of a narcotic.

Carter County Sheriff’s Department investigators lodged the charges against him after they said he overdosed Franklin Goss at his home on New Year’s Eve.

CCSD Lt. Tim Horne said when he and other officers responded on Dec. 31 to Perry’s home, emergency medical personnel were attempting to revive a man later identified as Goss, who was unresponsive and suffering from respiratory distress.

Horne said Perry told the paramedics and officers that he believed Goss had overdosed on heroin, but only gave a vague description when asked for more details.

Horne said he became suspicious when officers were unable to find any drugs or related paraphernalia in the home.

“Typically when officers respond to an overdose scene, there are going to be certain items that should be discovered to indicate the type of drug that was used, the manner it was ingested … there are usually things to indicate that this person took something,” the investigator said. “In this particular case, the absence of a syringe, a burnt spoon, a cup of water, filters, a shooter’s rig — generally, people who ingest these drugs don’t take them, clean up after themselves, hide everything and then sit back and enjoy the high.”