The police were closing in on him and he was afraid to go back to jail. Was it an OD or a suicide? 
De’Andre L. McCullough, the young protagonist of the book “The Corner”, which chronicled a year on a drug-plagued street corner in West Baltimore and was turned into an HBO miniseries, died Wednesday of an apparent overdose in Baltimore County, according to police and relatives.
It marked the end of a long struggle with addiction for McCullough, 35, who showed promise of getting his life on track but was being sought at the time of his death on warrants charging him with two armed robberies at Baltimore pharmacies, police said.
Baltimore County police said McCullough was found at about 6:20 p.m. on Aug. 1 by a girlfriend inside a residence in Woodlawn. The medical examiner's office has not determined a cause of death, but family said there was evidence of an overdose.
He went from selling drugs to abusing them. Ed Burns, a former city police officer and co-writer of “The Corner,” said in a 2004 interview that De’Andre was “a cool kid. He was a great street fighter. He had a great sense of humor. And he was into a little marijuana. ... By the end of the year, he was sniffing heroin and cocaine.”
City police said that they had linked McCullough to a June 8 robbery at the Westside Pharmacy and Wellness store in the 2000 block of W. Pratt St., where employees reported a man indicated he had a handgun and took medications and oxycodone.
Then on June 22, police said, McCullough went behind the counter at the Sunrise Pharmacy in the 1900 block of E. Northern Parkway, produced a silver automatic handgun and took bottles of morphine and other prescription medications. No one was harmed, and in both instances he allegedly made his demands using a note.
He had recently entered the Tuerk House treatment facility and planned to turn himself in on the warrants, but Simon said he feared returning to prison, where he would face a difficult detoxification.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/20...1_apparent-overdose-drug-overdose-david-simon
