CRIME

Son's heroin death more than a number to dad

Kevin Ellis
kellis@gastongazette.com
Will Gregg was the oldest of four children of Ted Gregg. Pictured here are his sister, Cassie Gibson (left to right), Will Gregg, sister Brea Ingram and brother Zach Gregg. [SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE]

When state health officials count up the hundreds of people who died this year from heroin, William Paul Gregg's death in a Gastonia hotel will become little more than a statistic.

"Doesn't someone's death in a hotel room not make the news anymore?" his father, Ted Gregg, cried into the telephone last week from his home in Alabama.

No, Mr. Gregg, it doesn't.

Unless the person was prominent in some way or a celebrity, rarely does an overdose death warrant media coverage anymore. There are just too many.

In 2017, more than five people died each day in North Carolina from an unintended opioid overdose. From 1999 to 2017, the opioid epidemic claimed more than 13,000 lives in North Carolina, according to state health records.

The data for 2018 has yet to be finalized, but state health experts predict the number of unintentional overdose deaths in North Carolina for last year to come in at 1,785.

In 2017, 50 people in Gaston County died from an unintentional opioid overdose, according to state health figures.

"It doesn't even make the news any more," Ted Gregg said this week as he prepared for his son's memorial service at the First Baptist Church in Cartersville, Georgia. "But I get emotional talking about it. I don't think I will ever get over it."

William Paul Gregg didn't live in Gaston County. The 33-year-old Alabama man was working for a construction company based in his home state when he checked into the Quality Inn near the intersection of U.S. 321 and I-85 with four other co-workers around 6:10 p.m. on Oct. 8.

Rooms with two beds at the hotel rent for $69 a night, plus tax. Gregg and another man from Alabama checked into Room 125. Two other men took another room.

"They got him on video around 7:10 that night smoking a cigarette outside his room as the other three guys went to the store," Gregg said.

The other three returned around 8 p.m. and found Gregg dead. Gastonia Police arrived at 8:37 p.m.

"They didn't find any drugs in the room but the other three guys did a sweep of the room before the cops arrived.

"We suspect heroin as the killer.

"The boys found one line of heroin on a table and evidence of another line that had been snorted. Will never used a needle. He hated needles. He snorted it," Gregg said.

Most people called William Gregg "Will." He was named after the legendary Alabama football coach William "Bear" Bryant. Will Gregg even played a little football, earning All-County honors in high school.

He put A.1. Steak Sauce on about everything he ate. He'd never married and didn't have any children or a girlfriend. He had 1,049 friends on the social media site Facebook.

"He was happy if he was broke and he was happy if he had money," said his father.

He started smoking marijuana when he was 16 and he loved getting stoned. Why did he go to narcotics? Who knows, said his father. Maybe it was the progression from pot to pills, some methamphetamines and then heroin. Maybe it was the crowd he hung around.

He'd only been doing heroin about a year. He never admitted to it, but his father suspected the secret.

The life he lived earned him good money putting up metal buildings all over the Southeast, as far north as West Virginia and as far south as Georgia.

The company paid him $20 a day in meal money, put him in a hotel room for the night. Then the money he was paid after each day's work went for drugs, his father said.

At 9:26 p.m. on Oct. 8, a Sgt. Smith from Gastonia Police called on the telephone, Ted Gregg said. He was kind, but his news was not good.

"When he called me I thought he was going to say, 'Will's in the hospital. Will's in jail.'

"But he said, 'Mr. Gregg, I have some bad news for you. Will has passed,'" Gregg said, his firm voice now cracking. "I had to get off the phone for a few minutes."

Ted Gregg said he wants to learn the first name of the sergeant who called him so he can thank him for his compassion that night. He'd like to know the person who sold his son the heroin, but said he doubts that information will ever come to light.

He tells a story that would be easy to hide. And while Will Gregg may be just a number in the opioid death toll, to Mr. Gregg he was the oldest of his four children.

"My kid wasn't perfect, not even close to perfect, but I love my kids," Gregg said.

Stories of overdose deaths don't make the news. Ted Gregg wanted his son's story told.

"I hope someone, maybe 18 or 25, reads this story and thinks, 'Man, I have to watch what I'm doing."

You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin.