COLUMBUS — The death of Mount Vernon resident Jason Blubaugh last November has been ruled by Columbus police as a drug overdose. The coroner’s report cited the presence of heroin and cocaine in Blubaugh’s body at the time of his death.
Blubaugh was found dead, wrapped in a blanket, on Nov. 22, 2008. Blubaugh had been staying at a motel on East Main Street in Columbus. His body was found at 1555 Bryden Road. At the time, the death was not treated as a homicide.
“It was a DOA,” Detective Jim McCosky of the Columbus Homicide Squad said at the time. “We believe it is drug related, but that determination will have to wait on the toxicology report. That usually takes about four weeks. At this point we are not treating it as a homicide.”
Blubaugh had been identified as an informant for the Mount Vernon Police in a number of drug cases in 2007-08. Court records identify Blubaugh, 35, as the sole eyewitness in at least 14 different local criminal prosecutions for drug trafficking. The records refer to him as confidential informant 18. A Mount Vernon News investigation showed that in all 14 cases, Blubaugh turned over to police fewer drugs than police had expected him to buy from the suspects in those cases.
