Adrian Lamo is most famous for turning U.S. Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning in to the authorities, but was already well-known among hackers and journalists because of his penetration of The New York Times’ source database, subsequent conviction for the hack, and his sparkling personality. He died mysteriously last year in what many assumed was suicide or murder, but NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston investigated his last months and found a tragic figure in failing health, evicted by his carers and in chronic pain. He likely died overdosing prescription drugs, kratom and nootropics after suffering a twisted leg.
His doctor was in the process of weaning him off some of the medications, including reducing the three different benzodiazepines he was taking. That is of particular interest because about a month before Lamo died, the FDA came out with a medical alert — a warning against mixing benzos with kratom. The combination had been linked to dozens of deaths.
“A few assessable cases with fatal outcomes raise concern that kratom is being used in combination with other drugs that affect the brain, including … benzodiazepines,” the alert read. Rohrig said Lamo had a handful of what he called designer benzos in his system, some of which weren’t available by prescription in the U.S.
“The most common way of getting these particular ones is basically off the Internet,” Rohrig told us. “You can order them and have them shipped to whatever address you want.” Debbie Scroggin assumed that lots of the pills and supplements coming into the house were in those packages addressed to Adrian Alfonso.