North Texas Mother Rents Billboard With Deceased Daughter's Photo Telling Everyone 'Fentanyl Kills'

ARLINGTON, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - An Arlington mother put up a billboard near AT&T Stadium to try to warn people about the growing danger from fentanyl.

"1 pill that's all I took" the billboard says, next to a picture of Patricia Saldivar's 22-year-old daughter Cassandra.

She died in June, after taking a counterfeit Percocet pill made with fentanyl.

Saldivar said she was unaware of the prevalence of the deadly drug in North Texas until her daughter's death.

"I've asked my family members they didn't know either," she said. "It's something that we don't know. And that's what I'm trying to do is spread awareness so that nobody has to go through the same thing I did."

She said she paid $2,100 for the ad that is right across the street from stadium parking lots.

On Monday, Oct. 4, she also took flyers to Bowie High School in Arlington where her daughter graduated in 2018, for the school to pass out to students who may be unaware of the drug.

"It can happen to anybody," she said. "She was young. Still had her whole life ahead of her."

Last week the DEA issued a public safety alert for what it called an alarming increase in the availability and lethality of the drug.

In North Texas the last two months agents have seized about 130,000 pills.