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Police identify drug overdose victim found in house

The man's relatives say they think prescription medication played a role in the landscaper's death.

By ROBIN STEIN
Published April 11, 2006

TARPON SPRINGS - Police have identified the 22-year-old man who died last week at 1028 E Tarpon Avenue and labeled the case a "suspicious death."

Family members of Andrew G. Blake said Monday they think prescription drugs played a part in his death. The former East Lake High School student was discovered in his apartment by a friend around 5:20 p.m. Friday. He was alone, on the couch and unresponsive.

Ambulance crews arrived within minutes, but it was too late.

Sgt. J. Allen MacKenzie of the Tarpon Springs Police Department said Monday that Blake did not die of trauma or from anything in his medical history, but declined to discuss specific causes or circumstances because of the ongoing investigation. However, Mackenzie said drug-related deaths may lead to homicide charges when investigators are able to definitively trace who sold the drugs to the victim.

Monday, Blake's family wasn't concerned with the details.

"It doesn't really matter anymore," said his older brother Rjay Blake, 23. "The fact is he's gone."

When he was not fishing, "Andy" Blake ran his own landscaping company called Handy Andy's. One of four children who grew up in the family's house in the Woodfield neighborhood off Keystone Road, Blake was far from an angel, his father and stepmother said. He drank too much beer and had several run-ins with the law, they said.

But he had a close-knit network of family and friends. He had attended United Methodist Church in Dunedin at one time, and family members said he was a fun-loving and caring person who was trying to get his life back on track. They did not suspect he had a drug problem.

"Andy's always had a big family, a big group of people who loved him, who always came to his rescue," his father Ronnie J. Blake said. "We just didn't see this one coming."

[Last modified April 11, 2006, 02:30:31]