Denver officials believe four “outdoor” deaths that occurred over the past week may be connected to drug overdoses, not the bitter cold weather.

Officers responded to five different incidents between Saturday and Tuesday that involved deaths not listed as homicides, according to multiple social media posts by the Denver Police Department.

Though the Office of the Medical Examiner has yet to release the cause of the deaths, the city’s Department of Health and Environment said that the first four were likely drug overdoses.

“Preliminary testing suggests that the cause of death for the four people who died outside on Nov. 25 and Nov. 26 is likely drug overdose,” Tammy Vigil, a spokesperson for the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, told The Denver Gazette.

The fifth outdoor death, which occurred on Tuesday, is too recent to determine the cause. An autopsy will not be completed until Wednesday, Vigil said.

So far this year, 459 people have died from drug overdoses in Denver, according to the Officer of the Medical Examiner. There is a month left in the year, though statistics may experience a lag of several weeks.

The city recorded 453 overdose deaths in 2022.

The “outdoor death” title does not mean the person is homeless. Instead, it means the body was found outside. This also applies to being found inside a vehicle.

The first death occurred in the 2400 block of North Alcott Saturday night, and the second man died near 17th and Wewatta. The third death happened on Sunday morning around 7:30 a.m. in the area of Colfax and St. Paul. The fourth death happened at Broadway and Bayaud on Sunday afternoon.

The fifth death occurred around 1 p.m. on Tuesday in the area of Platte and Santa Fe Drive, according to the Denver Police Department.

The department told The Denver Gazette that investigations are ongoing and declined to comment further.

Though temperatures dipped into the low 20s over all three weekend nights, city officials said the deaths were unlikely due to the cold.

“(The) Office of the Medical Examiner pathologists noted no definitive signs of hypothermia during autopsy of these cases,” Vigil said.

Investigators also don’t know if there’s a connection between the multiple deaths.

“We don’t have reason to believe that there has been a change in the drug supply that would cause these cases,” Vigil said. “We’ve seen moderate, ongoing increases in overdoses this year but nothing that would cause us to believe there are major changes in the drug supply.”