The family of an overdose victim is warning addicts there is bad heroin on Hamilton streets.

Pauline Bearfoot, 23, died last Friday. Her mother was told by hospital staff that her daughter's was the third heroin overdose death last week.

"I'd had this dream many times," Darlene Bearfoot said Tuesday, through tears. Her daughter struggled with drug addiction for several years, working in the sex trade to support her habit.

Her death comes less than two weeks after police warned the public about a "potentially fatal grade of heroin … that may have been responsible for a recent spike in heroin-related overdoses in Hamilton."

Police would not say Tuesday how many deaths are being investigated.

At the time of the release, they were aware of eight non-fatal overdoses over a 48-hour period and were concerned someone might die. They could not say then if the heroin is tainted or if it's just a very high potency.

A memorial was set up for Bearfoot over the weekend at the corner of Barton Street East and East Avenue, where she was often working.

Charlynn Berezoski and Joanne Walker live right near the corner and were disgusted to see parts of the memorial were stolen.

"Only in Hamilton," Walker said, shaking her head. Berezoski and Walker say another working girl in the area died last Wednesday of a suspected heroin overdose.

"Nothing's ever said and nothing's ever done because they're working girls," Berezoski said.

"But nobody has the right to judge, that's God's job … she (Bearfoot) didn't hurt anybody but herself."

Before the drugs, Bearfoot was a happy, smiley kid, uncle Garry Bearfoot remembers. And absolutely beautiful. He can vividly remember her running across the room in her diaper to hug his legs.

"She always told me I was her favourite uncle," he said Tuesday.

But she was tough and could also have a temper.

As a teen, her mother says, Bearfoot fell in with the wrong crowd.

"She started taking off, not going to school, then one day decided not to come home. She just decided to live her own life," Darlene says.

"I begged her all the time, please don't do another needle … the demons just took over her body."

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Bearfoot got out of jail just two days before her death, family says. Her mom doesn't know what she was in for, but had hoped over the years that jail time might force her to get clean.

She did have bouts of sobriety over the years, they say — it just never seemed to stick.

"Last year on Valentine's Day, her heart stopped," Darlene says.

Her daughter had overdosed. When she got out of the hospital, she stayed with her mom for four or five days.

"And then she said 'I'm sorry mom, it hurts so much I gotta go. I'm in too much pain. It's killing me," Darlene remembers.

Police would not comment on the investigation Tuesday.

"This is a coroner's case and the Hamilton police are investigating at the direction of the coroner. The origin and composition of the suspected heroin is unknown at this time," Constable Debbie McGreal-Dinning said in a statement.

Between 2008 and 2012, there were six deaths as a result of acute drug toxicity specifically involving heroin — compared to 136 across Ontario in that same time.

Regional coroner Dr. Jack Stanborough could not say how many heroin-related deaths have occurred in Hamilton over the last month, noting that it will be months before toxicology results are in.

Visitation for Bearfoot is at noon Wednesday with a funeral at 1 at at the Dodsworth & Brown Funeral Home Robinson Chapel (King Street East at Wellington Street).