2 face homicide charges in Northfield drug sale

Two Northfield men have been charged with homicide for giving heroin to a woman who overdosed at a time when the community was alarmed over reports of widespread use of the drug.

The overdose deaths of Jillian Marie Wetzel, 20, and five others in Northfield from 2006 through 2008 provided hard proof of the heroin trade that the Northfield police chief had warned was growing rampant in the college town about 45 miles south of the Twin Cities.

In 2007, then-Police Chief Gary Smith said publicly that he believed as many as 250 local youths were engaged in widespread heroin use, leading to a spike in property crimes as users tried to get drug money. Other community leaders reacted with shock and disbelief, and some contended the problem was not that large.

On Tuesday, the first of two men charged in connection with Wetzel's death appeared in Rice County District Court on third-degree homicide charges.

Michael Lee Smith, 25, was released on his own recognizance. Next Tuesday, co-defendant Andrew B. Eisenhuth, 27, is to be arraigned. If convicted, each faces up to 25 years in prison and a $40,000 fine.

County Attorney Paul Beaumaster said homicide charges in drug overdoses, which are unusual, can take quite some time to develop -- in this case, it took a year.

He declined to say if more suspects could be charged with drug-related homicides. Last fall, he charged eight people with various drug offenses linked to a heroin ring in Northfield.

Smith went on medical leave related to sleep apnea and other physical ailments, and five months later, he accepted a job as a police chief in Emporia, Kansas.

In the meantime, investigators kept working to build homicide cases in connection with the heroin deaths.

Admits to heroin use

Now, criminal complaints filed in Rice County District Court allege these circumstances surrounding the death of Wetzel, who worked at a local thrift store:

On Aug. 23 of last year, a friend of Wetzel's called 911 shortly after noon, reporting that he had found her in her bathroom, slumped over the toilet, her lips blue. Paramedics tried to resuscitate her for 35 minutes, but she was pronounced dead.

Two months after her death, on Oct. 22, Michael Smith showed up at the Northfield police station and told police of his own intravenous heroin use, which he said cost him about $200 a week.

About seven months earlier, he told police, he had overdosed himself, and an associate had resuscitated him.

He said Wetzel, whom he described as a longtime friend, had her own apartment, so a group of the Northfield heroin users would often gather there to inject themselves. Wetzel, in the four months before her death, had not been using heroin, he said; she had wanted to stay sober and was in a new relationship with a man who was trying to help her, Smith told police.

But on the eve of her death, she sent a text message to Smith, asking him if he would be going on his usual run to get heroin in North Minneapolis. She wanted some, Smith told police.

Childhood friend admits role

Smith said when he used it, he lost consciousness and his lips turned blue, according to what Eisenhuth later told him. Eisenhuth had to shake and jostle Smith to wake him.

Smith said he contacted Wetzel, let her know that the heroin was "very good," and then dropped hers off by putting it in her car outside the store where she worked.

Two days after Smith's confession, Eisenhuth also agreed to talk with police. He said that Wetzel had been his friend since childhood, and he also admitted his role in getting the heroin for her, the complaints say.

Beaumaster, the district attorney, offered one piece of hope: "I always hope that people will learn from others."