Janina Glasov, Young Brooklyn Writer, Dies From Apparent Drug Overdose

Pictured: Janina Glasov. Photo via LinkedIn

UPDATE, July 7, 5 p.m.: The NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner has confirmed the victim's identity as 25-year-old Bushwick resident Janina Glasov. Her cause of death has yet to be determined, spokesman Julie Bolcer said, "pending further studies."

Original story below.

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — A 25-year-old woman living at 1465 Bushwick Ave., near the park, was discovered unconscious on her bedroom floor late Tuesday afternoon with a bloody nose, according to the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

She was declared dead later that evening, police said.

The NYPD had not yet released the woman's identity or her suspected cause of death by Wednesday evening.

However, the New York Post, citing inside police sources and the victim's mother, identified the young woman as Janina Glasov, a San Francisco native and Hampshire College journalism major who had reportedly been planning to move back to the West Coast on the same day she was found dead.

A spoon, a hypodermic needle and an empty bag marked “MONSTER HIGH” that had apparently contained heroin were found next to her body, the Post reported. (The NYPD's press office could not confirm these details.)

"I'm just shocked by this," Michael Lesy, a literary journalism professor at Hampshire College who worked closely with Glasov, said over the phone Wednesday.

"This was not just another kid pumped out of a journalism program," he said. "This is a person who had unusual spirit and talent as a writer."

A woman who identified herself as Glasov's mom, but who declined to give her name, told the Post: “I just think every journalist out there should be doing something about these killer drugs that are out there. We can’t ignore this."

The woman said Glasov "was the most dazzling young woman. She had so much potential she had so much to give. She was just amazing.”

Glasov described herself on LinkedIn as a "passionate writer about the true strange and fascinating stories lurking around our everyday lives."

She got her BA from Hampshire College with a focus on journalism; international politics and economics; and creative writing, according to a resume she posted online.

While at Hampshire College, Glasov also received a research grant for a "literary journalism project" that explored "different stereotypes of female deviance, their social and political foundations, and the effects of these labels in the individual lives of 'deviant' women."

The project in its entirety can be read here. Some of Glasov's other long-form journalism can be found here.

"She was able to talk to anyone," Lesy, her former professor, remembered. "She could walk through walls. She could get a story that I thought would be impossible."

After graduating, Glasov worked as an intern at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Oakland Magazine and the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth literary agency in New York City, according to her LinkedIn.

Her final listed internship ended in December 2015.

Patch has reached out to the NYC Medical Examiner for updates on the investigation into Glasov's cause of death. (Check back for updates.)

If Glasov did die from a heroin overdose, she wouldn't be the only victim of the growing opioid epidemic in New York City and surrounding areas.

In recent years, heroin and opioid overdose deaths in NYC — 420 in 2013 alone — have eclipsed homicides. More than 2,000 pounds of heroin were reportedly discovered on city streets in 2014.

"Heroin and opioid addiction is now a major public health crisis in New York State," a state task force reported earlier this summer.

In Brooklyn specifically, state records show that over 5,000 opioid-related emergency room visits were recorded in 2014 — significantly more than in the city's other four boroughs.

"I really think this is a homicide," Glasov's former professor said Wednesday. "Not that someone killed her, but that the substance killed her."

Did you know Janina? We'd love to hear more about her. Reach out: simone.wilson@patch.com