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Tarrant County prosecutors announce first murder conviction in fentanyl overdose case

On a piece of paper, white text on a red banner reads "We want you safe! One pill of Fentanyl can Kill."
Toluwani Osibamowo
/
KERA News
An informational pamphlet on the dangers of fentanyl given to parents of Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District students at a workshop on Feb. 27, 2023.

Tarrant County prosecutors announced their first conviction under a new state law that allows them to charge people with murder for giving someone else a fatal dose of fentanyl.

Kaeden Farish, 19, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 19 years in prison for selling fentanyl-laced pills to a 17-year-old boy who died of an overdose, according to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office.

"We will continue to go after those who seek to profit from this deadly drug. You make it or deal it to someone who dies, we'll charge you with murder,” Tarrant County DA Phil Sorrells said in a press release.

KERA has reached out to both the DA’s office and Farish’s attorney with interview requests.

State Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, wrote the overdose murder law, called HB 6. He praised Sorrells in a post on X.

“We have to put the people who kill our citizens behind bars,” he wrote.

At least one other fentanyl murder charge is still pending in Tarrant County, according to court records. That's the case against Jacob Linsday, 47, who allegedly gave 26-year-old Brandon Harrison the dose of fentanyl that killed him.

Tarrant County prosecutors also brought a murder case against Kami Ludwig, 35, after the overdose death of former Tarrant County associate judge William Shane Nolen. A grand jury no-billed Ludwig, meaning they decided she should not be prosecuted.

These cases are part of Tarrant County’s push to seek the stiffest sentences in drug cases. Last year, the DA’s Office formed a new narcotics unit to handle cases involving fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs.

Assistant DA Michael Ferry told KERA at the time the unit would focus on big-time narcotics distributors.

"If you're talking about a boyfriend giving a pill to a girlfriend, that's probably not a case that's appropriate for the murder charge,” he said.

Critics of overdose murder laws say they typically punish people who use drugs, not kingpins, and say there’s no evidence that increased prosecution reduces the supply of and demand for drugs.

It’s unclear how many people statewide have been convicted so far under the new fentanyl murder law.

Last year, Jasinto Jimenez of Wichita Falls was sentenced to 45 years in prison for selling the fentanyl that killed Andres Diaz. His murder case was filed in Wichita County in 2022, before the 2023 fentanyl murder law passed.

Jimenez sold the pills to a woman who later gave one to Diaz, according to court documents.

Jimenez’s attorney appealed his conviction to the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth, arguing the evidence introduced at trial wasn’t enough to prove that delivery of fentanyl “is objectively an act clearly dangerous to human life."

“Diaz is not mentioned in the messages to purchase the fentanyl, was not spoken of during the transaction, and was never made known to Jasinto,” Jimenez’s attorney wrote in his appeal. “There is no basis for the jury to infer that Jasinto would know that fentanyl would later be distributed to him or anyone else.”

Wichita County prosecutors dismissed that argument in a subsequent filing.

“He committed a clearly-dangerous act by selling and delivering illicit fentanyl, a lethal poison, while knowing that it was fatally dangerous and while expecting it to be consumed,” they wrote.

Jimenez’s appeal is pending.

Other counties across the state are pursuing fentanyl murder cases, including Denton, Harris and Montgomery counties.

Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on X @MirandaRSuarez.

KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.

Miranda Suarez is KERA’s Tarrant County accountability reporter. Before coming to North Texas, she was the Lee Ester News Fellow at Wisconsin Public Radio, where she covered statewide news from the capital city of Madison. Miranda is originally from Massachusetts and started her public radio career at WBUR in Boston.