Fresno State student who died of drug overdose hoped to end addiction

By all accounts, 19-year-old Omar Nemeth had a sweet spirit and a good heart, but his social media activity online show he struggled with substance abuse that likely led to his death.

On Twitter, Nemeth’s friends described him as a one-of-a-kind person with a strong influence on those he knew. He was an aspiring musician with a sharp mind.

His father, Miroku Nemeth, said in a Facebook post that Omar was “full of light and love.”

“He was a laughing lion, and I will always remember him as the sweetest, kindest, and most loving person in my life,” Miroku said about his son.

“Laughing lion” was a fitting description of the younger Nemeth, who sometimes wore his blonde curls in dreadlocks. He sported clear-plastic glasses, often accompanied by an easy smile.

But online, Nemeth often referenced Xanax – a drug commonly used to treat anxiety that’s become popular among young people as a recreational drug – and posted photos of himself smoking marijuana and with water bottles containing prescription cough syrups.

The Fresno State biochemistry sophomore was found unresponsive Thursday at Delta Sigma Phi fraternity house and rushed to Saint Agnes Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Police Chief Jerry Dyer said Nemeth died after abusing Xanax and smoking marijuana for about a day. A bag containing 583 Xanax pills was found with Nemeth. About an ounce of marijuana and two bottles of Promethazine, an antihistamine sometimes abused for its sedative qualities, also were found.

Social media posts indicate Nemeth used drugs often and habitually. His apparent overdose prompted some in his social circle to flush Xanax pills down the toilet, dissuade people from accepting unknown substances from others, and send warnings of the dangers of other drugs, such as fentanyl.

Nemeth, from Fresno, attended the Center for Advanced Research & Technology (CART) and graduated from Clovis North in 2016. At CART, he and his longtime friend Colby Serpa studied addiction by immersing earth worms in MSG to monitor the compound’s addictive proprieties.

Serpa said Nemeth had a dream to end addiction and other diseases by using natural compounds. “It is so sad to see a brilliant polymath like him suffer from the very thing he was trying to destroy globally,” Serpa said.

Serpa met Nemeth when they were middle schoolers, and since then were part of a close-knit group of friends, Serpa said.

Nemeth also had an interest in music and published a handful of songs on SoundCloud under the names Omar Nemo and Psyientist.

This story was originally published January 5, 2018 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Fresno State student who died of drug overdose hoped to end addiction."