STATE COLLEGE, Pa (WTAJ) – A former Pennsylvania woman is being remembered by her family years after a deadly drug took her life.

Katie Gallagher was an up-and-coming fashion designer who was killed on July 23, 2022. Debbie and Barry Gallagher are mourning their daughter’s death as the trial inches closer and say the murder weapon was fentanyl.

“It’s hard for me to be talking to you,” Debbie said. “It might as well been a gun or a knife, but it wasn’t a gun or a knife. It was fentanyl,” Barry said.

Thousands of people die from overdoses every year. In 2024, about 48,422 deaths were a result of synthetic opioids, most of them fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is a silent and potent killer. For the Gallagher family, losing a loved one to a fentanyl overdose became a reality. 

“They had said fentanyl had been used as a weapon,” Debbie said.

The mourning never fully stops.

“Sometimes it hits you like a brick wall,” Debbie said, continuing, “You have a good cry, you start doing whatever, and you just try to move on.”

To understand the family’s loss, you have to understand who Katie was. She is one of Barry and Debbie’s four daughters. Barry says she was a vibrant and energetic woman.

“You always knew when Katie was around. She always made her presence felt,” Barry remembered, continuing, “She was just very spirited. Everybody seemed to like that about her.”

Debbie talked about Katie getting ready for school as a young child and having a dinosaur call, laughing as she remembered. 

“She was a very happy child. Just always ready to greet the day,” Debbie recollected.

The same vibrant energy she brought to life, she poured into her passion for fashion. Barry says Katie decided to go to the Rhode Island School of Design, or RISD. They said it was like boot camp for the fashion world. 

Debbie said Katie started her fashion career young. She always needed a pair of leggings and a bow to match.

During her professional fashion career, Katie worked multiple fashion weeks. She juggled various tasks all at once. Gallagher even dressed Lady Gaga and other celebrities.

“It was a very stressful time because she had a lot of pots on the stove. She was working everything from the makeup to the outfits. She’d have 15 to 24 models and each of them had a different look,” Barry remembered.

Central Pennsylvania is not where most fashion designers go to make a name for themselves, so Katie moved to New York City. After a few years, she left the Big Apple and headed to Los Angeles before deciding to come back to the East Coast. 

Even with miles between them, Katie was never far from her family’s hearts or their phones. They rarely went a day without speaking. 

“If we didn’t have her here, we were talking on the phone or texting,” Debbie said, continuing, “We always kept in touch.”

The weekend of July 22, 2022, Katie didn’t answer her phone. Debbie’s motherly instincts took over. 

“They said no, you’re just overthinking it, mom, she’s fine. I thought, I don’t know why, but I just had a feeling something was wrong,” Debbie said. 

Debbie acted on those instincts and picked up the phone.

“I called NYPD for a wellness check because she lived alone in the city and I always worried about her,” Debbie said. 

After hours of silence, the phone rang just before midnight that Sunday.

“We got a call from a policeman,” Debbie uttered, continuing, “He said, ‘Are you home?’”

“He said, ‘Come to your front door.’ It was the State College Police. They told us Katie had been found deceased in her apartment,” Debbie said. 

The last time they spoke to Katie was that Friday. Days later, the family traveled to New York City from places like State College, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Ireland to claim Katie’s body.

“They kept giving us the runaround,” Debbie said, “I said I know my daughter. I would know her if you just let me look at her. She got kind of angry and said, ‘Listen to me, your daughter is unidentifiable.’”

The family went to the medical examiner’s office, prepared to stay there until they were certain it was Katie. They waited for hours.

“The doctor came out and said, ‘We’ll show you some computerized images,’” Debbie stated, continuing, “She just showed us her tattoos on her hand, but I knew it was her from her tattoos.”

A few days after the initial phone call, a different detective called the Gallaghers and told them Katie had been a victim of a homicide.

“He basically told me that what was happening was people, these perpetrators, were using fentanyl as a weapon,” Barry said, continuing, “They just wanted to rob her. In that way, fentanyl was used as a weapon.”

Debbie did find a small sense of relief after hearing the horrifying facts. 

“I was kind of relieved to know that she wasn’t some kind of drug addict,” Debbie said, going on, “That was her mantra to tell people. Don’t take anything on the street or anything because it’s all laced with fentanyl.”

As little as two milligrams of fentanyl can kill someone. It’s 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the CDC.

“Can you imagine a young 35-year-old woman who had never been involved with that drug before?” Barry asked.

In December 2022, nearly five months after Katie’s death, Kenwood Allen was charged in connection with a string of nightclub druggings.

Allen has been charged with a drugging, robbery and larceny spree that totaled 21 victims and caused the deaths of five people. According to a news release from 2023, Allen is charged with 10 counts of murder in the second degree, 13 counts of robbery in the first degree, two counts of robbery in the second degree, among other charges.

Katie’s case stood out because she was never robbed. 

“I mean, she was right there. She was at her doorstep and a friend came and kind of put his arm around her and took her away and got her into the apartment and what he felt was out of danger,” Barry said, continuing. “But we don’t find out until later that at that point it was already too late because she went into her apartment and he left.”

“She went into the apartment, she laid down on her bed, and never breathed again,” Barry said. 

Barry and Debbie think about Katie every day. Debbie always looks at pictures of Katie. 

“I’m a former school teacher, and I care a great deal about young people. I really want the message to be out that you know, be careful,” Barry said.

The family has created the Katie Gallagher Legacy Fund through the Pittsburgh Foundation. They hope to honor Katie’s creative spirit by supporting young artists through a scholarship in her name.