"I guess I really didn't come to grips with it until I went into the funeral home and saw him," Thomas says as a tear rolled down his cheek.

Investigators say the Lortab pills Eric took were originally ordered online.

The TRIDENT Drug Task Force investigates a growing number of these cases in Raleigh and Fayette counties every year.

Task Force Coordinator Ron Booker says at least 60% of TRIDENT cases involve pharmaceuticals.

"We've investigated cases where we have multiple persons ordering several hundred pills a week, and that's very dangerous. This is an epidemic," Booker said.

Local pharmacists agree. Unregulated online pharmacies are risky and many times deadly.

"They're [online pharmacies] not held accountable if they make a mistake. There's no way to get to the person that caused the mistake or really to even know the drug that was involved," says Pharmacist Patty Johnston of Colony Drug and Wellness Center in Beckley.

Drug investigators say it just takes a little bit of time, a computer and money to order these drugs.

Many of the online pharmacies say there is no prescription needed. You just have to fill out some easy questionnaires, and the drugs are yours for the taking.

Agent Booker says people skate around the limit requirements by using different names to order mass quantities of pills.

When people use those different names, that's a crime in West Virginia.

What's not a crime is ordering pills online. That's something Agent Booker is trying to change.

Booker recently wrote a letter to Governor Joe Manchin about this concern.

"What we're hoping is that West Virginia passes a law where you can't order pills and have them shipped into West Virginia," Booker said.

It's a cause Bobby Thomas is also lobbying for, as well.

A year and a half after his brother's death, Thomas says he wants to see something done about online access to prescription drugs. And his brother isn't the only reason.

His fiancé, Cassie, almost died from an overdose in September this year.

"When I found her, she was barely breathing. I did CPR on her for about 15 minutes until the ambulance arrived," Thomas said.

Cassie's medication did not come from an online source. But her case is another example of the prescription drug problem seeping into local communities.

She's one of the lucky ones. She's temporarily in a wheelchair. But she is alive.

"It's not worth it. It's not. It's not worth being in this chair. It's not worth having your life taken away because of it," Cassie admits. And for Cassie and Bobby, they know about life being taken away.

"If you are someone who's using and doing this stuff, you need to seriously think about getting some help because you could very easily end up at one of the local cemeteries, just like my brother," Thomas says.