3 facing murder charges in fentanyl-related death of Pahrump woman
Three people are facing a murder case in the fentanyl-related death of a Pahrump woman, Nye County authorities announced Monday.
Charles Coleman, of Pahrump, and Clark County residents Merrissa Odgen and Joshua Sanchez-Lopez, were recently charged with murder and conspiarcy to violate the Uniform Controlled Substance Act, the Nye County District Attorney’s Office wrote in a news release.
Prosecutors allege that the suspects provided the woman the pills that killed her from a fentanyl and oxycodone overdose.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is increasingly being cut into counterfeit pills and other illicit drugs, is described as being up to 100 times stronger than morphine.
The drug is “showing up more and more in cases of overdose and death in Nevada, and when people provide drugs or pills, nobody knows if there’s fentanyl in the mix,” District Attorney Chris Arabia said in the release.
The counterfeit opioid killed 255 Nevadans in 2020, more than twice the 78 deaths reported in 2019, the state’s data shows.
In Clark County alone, it killed 227 people in 2021, including 10 people under the age of 18, according to Metropolitan Police Department figures.
“One of the ways to fight the problem and protect our community is to hold the people responsible accountable for the death,” Arabia said in the release.
Ogden is facing an additional misdemeanor count for allegedly destroying evidence, the release said.
Additional details were not immediately available.
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.
