Drugs Suspected In Student’s Death Police Find Needle Tracks On Model Medical Student

Jennifer Timbrook’s smiling face was on the cover of her medical school’s recruitment brochure.

“Most schools use models,” said Steve Villano, administrator of the state College of Medicine. “We used a true model student - her.”

That image collided Monday with a far different one: the dynamic, 32-year-old Timbrook dead in a hospital X-ray darkroom, apparently of a drug overdose.

Police found needle tracks on her arms and legs, indicating the “model student” from the Midwest was no first-time user.

The cause of death remained under investigation Wednesday, but detectives believe the third-year medical student, who worked part-time at gritty Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, was killed by a powerful tranquilizer.

The drug apparently was fentanyl, which has a history of abuse within the medical community, said a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Three syringes - one used, two still full - were found underneath and around the body, the police source said. Police were investigating the possibility that the drugs came from hospital supplies normally accessible only to doctors and nurses, not medical students.

The revelation that Timbrook could have been an abuser stunned her family, colleagues and classmates. They said that there was nothing unusual about her behavior and that they never suspected she had a drug problem.

Dismay and disbelief shrouded the Brooklyn campus and hundreds of students and faculty members turned out for an impromptu memorial service.

“We had no clue,” her father, the Rev. Max Timbrook, said from Mitchell, Ind.

As part of her training, Timbrook worked at Kings County, a 1,200-bed, public hospital that treats some of the poorest and sickest patients in the city, including AIDS sufferers, gunshot victims and drug addicts.

An aspiring pediatrician who lived in an on-campus dorm, Timbrook impressed peers and instructors.

“She was very deep and moral in spiritual belief,” said Kenneth Martinucci, the hospital’s director of radiology and technology. “I can’t think of anybody who would make a better physician.”