2 suspects charged with murder in October fentanyl overdose of man in Denton County
Two people are facing murder charges in Denton after an investigation linked them to a fatal fentanyl overdose, according to a news release from Denton police.
Police responded the morning of Oct. 18 to calls about a person unconscious at a hotel in the 3700 block of south Interstate 35E to find Corey Alan Culver, 29, of St. Pauls, North Carolina, dead. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified his cause of death as combined cocaine and fentanyl toxicity.
Tabitha Balent, 38, and Raymond Hernandez, 37, both of Denton, are charged with murder, along with a litany of drug charges, after investigators determined they supplied the fentanyl-laced narcotics that killed Culver, according to police. The charges stem from a new Texas law that allows authorities to charge the person who sells or provides a lethal dose of fentanyl with murder.
Balent was the person who called 911 to report that she found Culver dead in the hotel room bed when she woke up, according to the news release. When detectives executed a search warrant for the room, they found drug paraphernalia and two circular blue pills they believed to be counterfeit oxycodone M30 tablets containing fentanyl.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency and Department of Justice, fentanyl-laced pills can be made to look similar to prescription pills like Oxycontin or Percocet, which also go by names including “M30s,” “perks,” “percs,” “yerks,” “China girls,” and “TNT.” Research from the DEA has found that 60% of the pills laced with fentanyl contain potentially lethal doses.
Detectives obtained a search warrant for Balent’s phone after searching the room, according to the release. They found texts between Balent and Culver, where she tells him she got “percs” and would be delivering the pills to him on Oct. 17, the day before he was found dead in the hotel room.
Investigators also found texts with Hernandez, in which Balent talked about purchasing the suspected drugs from him, according to the release. Hernandez was already under investigation by the Denton County Sheriff’s Office on a separate narcotics case. The sheriff’s office obtained felony arrest warrants for two counts of manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance in penalty group 1, between 4 grams and 200 grams and one count of the same for amounts between 1 gram and 4 grams.
Denton police obtained a warrant for Balent’s arrest on a charge of murder and she was taken into custody on Wednesday by Denton police, the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Marshals Joint East Texas Fugitive Task Force. She and Hernandez were both found and arrested at their shared residence in the 3400 block of Ganzer Road West.
Police said both suspects separately agreed to talk to investigators. During her interview, Balent told police she got the pills from Hernandez and then gave them to Culver. Denton police obtained an arrest warrant for Hernandez after he admitted to supplying Balent with the pills she later gave to Culver.
Balent is currently in the Denton County Jail on $100,000 bond, while Hernandez is being held in the Denton City Jail on $150,000 bond on the murder charge, according to the news release.
Both Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree and Denton Police Chief Doug Shoemaker said in the release that fentanyl is a real threat to the people of both the city and the county. They urged members of the community to come together to prevent more deaths from fentanyl poisoning.
Tarrant County on Wednesday announced its first murder charge stemming from a fentanyl overdose. A Tarrant County grand jury handed up a murder indictment for Jacob Lindsay, 46, in connection to the death of Brandon Harrison in Fort Worth.
Harrison was found dead on Sept. 18 at a sober living facility in Fort Worth. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his cause of death as fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity.
The law allowing murder charges against the person or people who supply someone with a fatal dose of fentanyl is part of Texas’ efforts to respond to an alarming number of deaths resulting from overdoses, and the state isn’t alone. Federal authorities have in recent years been increasing efforts to crack down on the illegal sale of the drug.
Stephen Paul Brinson, 18, was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison in August after the Justice Department said he admitted to dealing fentanyl-laced pills out of his home. And on Wednesday, federal authorities announced 29-year-old Alonzo Smith will spend 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to running a ring of drug houses in the Fort Worth area where he and others trafficked drugs including fentanyl and methamphetamine.
