Officials say drug-soaked letters, books and legal papers have fueled fatal overdoses and a growing criminal investigation inside one of the nation’s largest jails.
CHICAGO, Ill. — Deaths tied to paper coated with synthetic drugs have rattled Cook County Jail, where officials say a smuggling method that surfaced in January 2023 has killed inmates, triggered criminal cases and pushed investigators into a widening hunt for suppliers.
The case has drawn intense attention because the contraband is easy to hide, difficult to test and able to move through ordinary mail, books and even legal papers in a jail that has held thousands of mostly pretrial detainees. Investigators say the chemical mixes have changed faster than laboratories and law enforcement can identify them. Officials are also still waiting on autopsy results in recent deaths they believe may be tied to the same pipeline, leaving the scope of the problem unsettled even after arrests and tighter screening.
The danger became clear after Thomas Diskin, 57, was found dead in his cell in late January 2023. Investigators found singed scraps of rolled paper nearby and no obvious signs of homicide. At first, jail officials were dealing with what looked like a scattered medical mystery. Then another inmate died in February 2023, and another in April. Justin Wilks, the head investigator at the jail, later said that after the first cases, “something clicked.” Officials began to suspect that the paper itself was carrying the drugs. By the end of 2023, at least six inmates had died of overdoses connected to the smuggled sheets, according to later reporting cited by the sheriff’s office and local news outlets. What began as a series of isolated deaths had become, in the jail’s view, a fast-moving contraband crisis.
Officials say the sheets were being cut into strips and smoked, often with braided toilet paper used as makeshift wicks. The papers turned up in postcards, letters, photographs, magazines and books. Some packages appeared to come from ordinary retailers. When mail screening tightened, investigators said traffickers shifted to legal correspondence and other routes that were harder to block without raising constitutional and practical concerns. Officers searching cells and common areas began looking for burnt scraps, resin-stained fingers and hidden packets. The jail also expanded surveillance and cell searches as overdoses mounted. Dr. Priscilla Ware, who oversees Cook County Correctional Health, said the threat was unusually lethal because the contents could vary from sheet to sheet and were often mixed with chemicals intended to intensify the effect. She called the trend a grave medical emergency inside the facility.
The chemistry only made the problem harder to contain. Test results often took weeks or months to come back, and the formulas were unfamiliar even to experienced investigators. In one July 2024 seizure, three pieces of suspected drug-soaked paper recovered at the jail were found to contain a combined total of 10 dangerous synthetic substances. The list included protonitazene, a synthetic opioid described as more powerful than fentanyl, xylazine, several synthetic cannabinoids, a hallucinogen, multiple benzodiazepines and a stimulant. Sheriff Tom Dart said the result was terrifying because earlier seizures had often contained only two or three dangerous substances. In another recent case, toxicology results tied an inmate’s death to a cluster of drugs that closely resembled the compounds found on one especially contaminated sheet. Officials say the mixes have become more volatile, not less, as enforcement has intensified.
The broader context at the jail deepened the concern. Cook County Jail reported 18 deaths in custody in 2023, the highest total there in at least a decade, and medical examiner records reviewed by news organizations showed eight overdose deaths that year. Dart’s office said a sudden influx of paper laced with fentanyl and other substances was the main driver of that spike, though outside reporting also documented failures in supervision and medical response in some cases. The jail responded in April 2023 by sharply restricting outside paper and screening incoming items more aggressively. That step brought criticism from defense lawyers, teachers and advocates who said paper is a lifeline for people awaiting trial and should not be treated as disposable contraband. Dart declined to impose a total ban. He said physical letters and cards still carry emotional weight for detainees, many of whom have not been convicted.
Even with the tighter controls, the criminal cases kept coming. In May 2024, Cook County sheriff’s investigators announced charges against Brandy Frazier, 23, and Leroy Carter, 42, after authorities said they tried to smuggle drug-soaked paper to an inmate during a hospital medical visit by leaving it in a bathroom. In a separate case, Josephine Frazier, 30, and Wendell Eiland, 27, were accused after an officer saw an object passed across a visitation table in the Division 10 gymnasium. Tests later confirmed the paper contained a synthetic cannabinoid. By that point, the sheriff’s office said dozens of people in custody and civilians had been charged in cases involving drug-soaked paper and other illegal substances. Investigators said the smuggling network was no longer limited to one route or one group of participants. It had reached visits, hospital trips, incoming mail and, in some cases, people working around the jail.
That fear grew in August 2024, when Cook County authorities charged corrections deputy Shadonna Jones after a search of her garage turned up 48 stained sheets of paper and a letter that investigators said described the trade in blunt economic terms. According to the sheriff’s office, the letter said a page could sell for $10,000 inside the jail and promised Jones $2,500 for each package she could deliver. State lab testing later found a synthetic cannabinoid on the seized paper. That same month, another jail seizure showed how far the chemistry had shifted. One set of papers carried nine drugs on a single sheet. By November 2024, an inmate named Jadarius Baker had also been indicted after officers found drug-soaked papers hidden in his shoes during a pat-down. The pattern suggested that the market had adapted to each new checkpoint rather than collapsing under it.
The investigation widened again in 2025. After months of tracking packages and following leads from inside the jail, federal agents arrested Denis Joiner, 33, of Calumet City in late July 2025. Court records and local reporting said investigators linked him to shipments of drug-soaked paper and synthetic substances sent to correctional facilities in Illinois and other states. Officers who searched the home described by investigators found stained paper, tan powder, shipping materials, an industrial mixer, amber bottles and fans believed to be used to dry soaked pages. Joiner was charged in federal court with distribution of a controlled substance after authorities said the paper carried two forms of synthetic cannabinoids. But the arrests did not end the flow. Officials said that in the month after Joiner was taken into custody, officers still confiscated 277 suspicious pages, and autopsy results were pending in two jail deaths in 2025 and one in early 2026 that they believe may be linked to even stronger papers.
Inside the jail, the crisis has left a distinct texture and smell. In the maximum-security wing, former detainees and current officials have described the odor of scorched paper lingering in the air and officers checking fingertips for brown residue left by handling or smoking the strips. Rashad Rowry, a former inmate, described the logic behind the risk in bleak terms, saying that for people facing long sentences, “even for a minute” of escape can outweigh the danger. Dart has framed the fight as a balance between security and basic human connection. He has said the jail could not simply cut off every piece of paper sent by families, especially cards and letters from children. That tension remains at the center of the response: every page can be evidence, comfort, contraband or all three at once.
The case now stretches from jail tiers and mail tables to suburban homes and federal court, with investigators still trying to identify who is making the newest mixtures and how they are reaching detainees. As of April 6, 2026, officials say suspicious paper is still being seized and the next major benchmark will be the completion of pending autopsy and lab results tied to the most recent deaths.
Author note: Last updated April 6, 2026.