A Minneapolis man is charged with third-degree murder for allegedly selling pills that resulted in a fatal fentanyl overdose.
Eric Montel Traft-Johnson, 24, was charged Friday in Hennepin County District Court for selling the pills to an unnamed victim, who told his aunt before the overdose that he "needed pills to sleep."
Authorities said they have had two encounters with Traft-Johnson since July in which he had the same counterfeit pills.
Traft-Johnson had 36 pills on him when he was arrested Dec. 15, according to the charges. The pills are oxycodone look-alikes, which have been a growing cause of alarm among Twin Cities health and law enforcement for years.
Pills laced with fentanyl are to blame for a large number of overdoses across the state. Last year in Hennepin County, 340 people died of opioid overdoses, most of which involved fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic officials say is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
The unnamed victim in this case had fentanyl and cocaine in his toxicology report. He didn't trust Traft-Johnson, according to the criminal charges, so he texted his aunt, who lives in New York. She told police that he was going to buy sleeping pills around 2 a.m. Nov. 9 and shared with her the dealer's phone number, SnapChat information and the address where he planned to meet Traft-Johnson.
She never heard back from her nephew so she called police for a welfare check.
A friend of the victim had a similar last exchange with the victim. The friend told police that the victim would send texts in the past when going to buy drugs, "but he was never this explicit," according to the charges.
