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AUSTIN, Ind. — At the height of rural America’s worst drug-fueled HIV outbreak, Jerrica Hall stole and traded sex to feed her unrelenting craving for opioid pills she crushed and injected — an addiction that gripped many in this town of 4,100.
In 2015, she walked into an Austin trap house where she used drugs. Inside, a group of friends had their heads down, crying. Everyone had been diagnosed that day with HIV.
She’d shared a used needle once, too, and soon caught the quickly spreading virus. With a 3-month-old child and a dearth of local addiction support, hopelessness led soon to an overdose.