Mother of Local Teen Killed by Fentanyl Urges Others to 'Fight Against This Epidemic'

In a newly released video, local mother Lilia Astudillo gets right to the point.

“I never thought something like this could happen to my family,” she says in Spanish as English subtitles scroll across the bottom of the clip.

Astudillo’s 14-year-old son, Jose Alberto Perez, died in January from fentanyl poisoning. In the video she says her son, a student at Long Middle School in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, made “one wrong decision,” which resulted in his death.

The three-minute video is a part of an expanding effort by the school district to spread the word about the dangers of fentanyl, something that has become shockingly rampant over the past year. In February, authorities made the first of several arrests they announced were connected to three juvenile deaths and seven overdoses in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD between September 2022 and January of this year.

Additional suspected fentanyl overdoses have happened on Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD campuses in the last several weeks. Last week, a student was revived with Narcan, the opioid overdose-reversing nasal spray, after falling unconscious on school grounds.

Neighboring schools in other districts, including Hebron High School in Carrollton, have also seen fentanyl infiltrate their student bodies. In February, 16-year-old Plano Senior High School student Sienna Vaughn died after her parents said she took only one pill that she thought was prescription Percocet, but was a counterfeit pill laced with a fatal amount of fentanyl.


The deaths and hospitalizations caused by fentanyl have been mounting across the state, with surges similar to what North Texas has seen playing out in the areas surrounding Austin and Houston as well. Gov. Greg Abbott recently announced a $10 million campaign featuring the tagline “One Pill Kills.” It also looks as though the Texas Legislature will soon move to legalize fentanyl test strips, which have been outlawed as drug paraphernalia, through a bipartisan effort.

In the new Carrollton video, hopeful images of young Perez smiling behind a birthday cake and posing in a youth football uniform roll as his mother speaks about her loss and warns other families to have open communication about fentanyl’s dangers.

“We need to support each other, educate each other,” Astudillo says in Spanish as the video nears its end. “And fight back against this epidemic.”