Police: Driver on opioids in crash that killed 4

• ‘This epidemic is bigger than just our community.’ - Kenton County Police Chief Spike Jones
• Kenneth Hartsock was in two other crashes in Fort Wright — and in one of them, police said he was unconscious when they got to the scene.

Heroin or prescription painkillers may have contributed to the deaths of four people on Sept. 1, when a driver crashed head-on into a family’s vehicle in Fort Wright.

Kenneth Hartsock, the 48-year-old driver who crashed into a car carrying three people on Highland Pike near Reeves Drive, had opioids in his system at the time of the crash, according to a preliminary report from the medical examiner’s office.

Kenton County Police Chief Spike Jones said that it’s unknown yet whether the opioids in Hartock’s system came from heroin or prescription painkillers.

“Whether he was abusing prescription medication or heroin, at the end of the day, the result is the tragic death of four people,” Jones told The Enquirer on Tuesday. “His driving impaired led to the death of three innocent people, and himself.”

Hartsock’s car hit a car being driven by a woman with her sister in the passenger seat and her husband in the back seat.

Sarah Willis, 70, of Bromley, was driving west on Highland Pike when Hartsock’s car, headed east, crossed lanes and struck her vehicle just before 3 p.m. that day, police said. Her husband, John Willis, 79, was treated at the scene but died. Sarah Willis and her sister, Gloria Roaden, 72, of Ludlow, were dead when emergency responders arrived.

Jones said the case “speaks even louder” to the need to get the heroin and prescription painkiller epidemic that the region, and the nation, is struggling with, under control.

“It’s a tragedy for our community, for these individuals,” Jones said. “This epidemic is bigger than just our community. We are fighting now as a society.”

Fort Wright Police Chief Daniel Kreinest had asked the Kenton County Police accident-reconstruction team to investigate the crash.

Investigators found that Hartsock was driving about 80-82 mph as he headed down the Highland Pike hill, based on speed-ratio estimates, which are generally accurate, Jones said. The vehicle he hit was going about 53 mph.

It wasn’t the first time in recent months that Hartsock, of Edgewood, crashed his car.

Hartsock was in two other crashes in Fort Wright — and in one of them, police said he was unconscious when they got to the scene.

On Aug. 9, Fort Wright police responded to a call about a crash at Kyles Lane at Cumberland Avenue. A police report states that Hartsock’s car went out of control and crashed into guy wires on a utility pole. He was unconscious but breathing when police arrived at about 8:40 a.m.

After that crash, Hartsock told police he was taking prescription medication, and his wife the next day told police that a doctor said the medication caused him to pass out, according to the crash report.

Jones had no comment on whether Hartsock had a prescription for medication. A federal health privacy law protects the health information about a deceased person for 50 years following the date he or she died, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The police chief said law enforcement is doing “everything it can” to help curb the heroin and opioid epidemic in the region, but he added that the crash is an impact of the epidemic on the general public’s safety.

“We have to get our heads and our hearts and our hands around this,” Jones said. “It’s extremely concerning to us, as law enforcement, to the public’s safety, but it’s concerning to everyone in society.”