Gilroy community mourns man suspected of dying from fentanyl overdose

The Gilroy community gathered on Wednesday to mourn the loss of a man suspected of dying from a fentanyl overdose.

Family members say Owen Alonzo was one of four men found unconscious in the house recently, and their message was: get help.

One by one, loved ones spoke of the man some called “dad.”

“He always said, ‘I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you.’ And it will always be with me,” said Marisela.

“Very shocking. Gilroy is grieving a lot,” said Pastor Jesse Jimenez of Gilroy Victory Church.

The pastor said he had known Alonzo for 35 years.

“Hearing this news was very discouraging. We have known Owen for a long time and he did not use fentanyl,” Jimenez said. “Maybe he threw parties and other things and fentanyl was not his drug of choice. And very sorry to hear of his loss. Our loss.”

Pastor Jimenez said his church has held four funerals in the last week alone. Some for drugs.

A couple of days ago, investigators said they found four people unconscious in a house north of Gilroy.

Each was given narcan, but three died. All were in their fifties, and family members say Alonzo was one of them.

But that’s not how they plan to remember him.

“We’re just going to continue to keep it in the bright light and make sure people don’t have the wrong opinion about it,” one community member said. He was a family man, that’s for sure.

There were 125 fentanyl-related deaths in the South Bay in 2021.

Just two years earlier, there were only 25.