[naviga:img class="img-responsive" alt="Dayne Steele" src="/Assets/news2015/dayne steele.JPG"/]

Courtesy of New London Police.

Dayne R. Steele was convulsing on the living room floor of a friend's condominium on Connecticut Avenue in New London, having moments earlier injected a shot of heroin followed by a shot of cocaine.

The 25-year-old East Lyme resident was one of seven people who overdosed in the city on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, a day the region saw an unprecedented spike in cases that police said may have been the result of heroin tainted with the powerful opiate Fentanyl.   

He was conscious and breathing, but not alert when police and emergency medical technicians arrived at the home of Sarah Dahm at 4:30 p.m., according to a police report.

He was mumbling incoherently, swinging his arms wildly, kicking and flailing.

Dahm, who had called 911, said Steele had become upset after learning police were looking for him. She said he went into the bathroom for several minutes and collapsed after coming out.

Steele was revived by New London firefighters, who administered several lifesaving doses of Narcan throughout the city that day.

He was taken to Lawrence + Memorial Hospital for evaluation, then arrested by city police after medical staff cleared him to leave.

Police say Steele, who had no criminal record, had committed a string of crimes to satisfy his never-ending need for heroin.

He confessed he had walked the streets of his hometown in April 2015, suffering from withdrawal and looking for unlocked cars to steal anything of value.

In January 2016, police say he broke into area homes and stole cash and jewelry.

On the day he overdosed, he allegedly took a gun belonging to his father that he was preparing to trade for drugs, then "borrowed" his grandfather's car to drive into New London for his fix.

His parents, East Lyme businessman Steven Carpenteri and Denay Steele, are hoping he will get the help he needs desperately.

One of the people who overdosed in New London on Jan. 28 did not survive.

Eddiecarco "Eddie" Castellano, 47, who had been active in the local recovery community, was found dead in bed at 66 Jefferson Ave., police said.

He died from "an acute combination of morphine and buprenorphine (also known as Suboxone) toxicity," according to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The medical examiner also noted coronary artery disease as a significant contributing factor in Castellano's case.

Steele has detoxed from heroin while in custody and is being held in lieu of $63,000 at the Corrigan Radgowski Correctional Institution.

He is charged in five cases, and police said the investigation is continuing. He is being evaluated by court officials for suitability to enter a treatment program while those cases are pending.

His father said Steele needs to go away to a rehabilitation program for a long time.

"His family is very concerned, and we want him to get better," Carpenteri, owner of the Lyme Tavern Restaurant & Sports Bar and Rocky Neck Inn & Suites, said during a brief phone interview.

Carpenteri said a friend had gotten Steele into pills, and that he eventually turned to heroin, the cheaper alternative.

"The drugs take a normally good kid and turn him into a bad person," the father said.

Steele's mother said her son, who once worked as a counselor for troubled teens, had overdosed twice before the Jan. 28 incident.

She said he checked himself in to a couple of programs, thinking that if he could detox, he could recover on his own.

At one point, she said, he was released to a sober house in a drug-infested neighborhood.

Denay Steele said she realizes that relapses are common, but said insurance companies need to cover lengthier rehabilitation stays and programs need more accountability.

Car reported stolen

East Lyme police Sgt. Bruce Babcock, who confronted Steele about burglary cases after the overdose, said it was sad to watch somebody he had known since childhood cross the boundary from recreational drug use to heroin addiction.

Babcock said he had coached Steele in Little League and taught him in DARE class.

"You're the only cop I can't lie to," Steele told Babcock during an interview at New London police headquarters. "I did it."

At the Connecticut Avenue home, New London patrolman Joshua Bergeson had noticed a 9mm bullet on the floor next to Steele while holding Steele down to prevent him from injuring himself, according to a police report.

Two more rounds of ammunition fell out of Steele's right front pants pocket, and Bergeson found two more 9mm rounds and a gold ring with a diamond face after a pat down, the report said.

After speaking with Steele at the hospital, police returned to the Connecticut Avenue apartment, where on the bedroom floor they said they found his jacket, containing a .44 magnum revolver loaded with four rounds of ammunition.

Steele said that at 4 that morning, with no money to buy heroin, he came up with a plan to break into his grandfather Sal Carpenteri's home in Old Lyme.

He said he walked there from his mother's house on Faulkner Lane in Niantic and waited in a cold shed until the house was clear.

He broke in through a window and stole cash and jewelry. He took from an open gun safe the Llama Super Comanche .44 magnum revolver, which was registered to his father, and several rounds of ammunition, according to a report.

Steele said he "borrowed" his grandfather's Buick LaCrosse to drive into the city, pay his drug dealer, to whom he said he owed several hundred dollars, and buy about $150 worth of heroin.

He said he planned to trade the gun to cover a $100 debt to a dealer and buy more heroin, and that he had taken the ammunition so the dealer could test fire the gun.

His grandfather had reported his car stolen, but didn't know the gun was missing until it was recovered by police, according to the report.

At the New London Police Department, Steele was cooperative and polite with officers and thanked them for treating him respectfully, according to the report.

Later in the evening, during an interview with Babcock and East Lyme detective Mark Comeau, he confessed to committing several crimes in a written statement that began, "My name is Dayne Steele and I have an addiction to heroin, and I sometimes steal and sell or pawn stolen goods to fund my addiction."

On Jan. 15, he broke into a home on Prospect Drive in East Lyme, stealing $500 in bills, hundreds of dollars worth of coins and a credit card, according to an arrest warrant application written by Babcock.

Before entering the Prospect Drive home, Steele said he had knocked on a door at another neighborhood residence to see if anybody was home.

When somebody answered the door, Steele, who was on foot, said he lived in the neighborhood and asked if he could borrow some milk, according to the warrant.

The homeowner told him to leave and called police to report a suspicious person.

Steele then told of entering the unoccupied house on Prospect Drive and taking his time to search every room.

During the burglary, he said he has hungry, so he opened the refrigerator and found a fresh pan of biscotti. He said he sampled them and decided to take the entire pan.

He ate the the Italian biscuits as he walked home slowly along main roads, his backpack almost tearing due to the weight of the stolen coins.

He said a friend drove him to Stop & Shop stores in Niantic and Waterford, where he turned the stolen coins into bills at the Coin Star machines.

He estimated he stole $1,500 from the home.

On Jan. 20, he allegedly stole jewelry from a Boston Post Road home and pawned it immediately at the Collectors Coin Shop in downtown Niantic, according to a warrant affidavit written by Comeau, the East Lyme detective.

Town police Officer Lindsay Cutillo, who was off duty, noticed him coming out of the pawn shop with another man and notified her coworkers.

Steele also is suspected of burglarizing his father's business, the Lyme Tavern, where he was an employee. That investigation is ongoing.

k.florin@theday.com