MAN FACES EVIDENCE TAMPERING CHARGE

A Somerset man, booked on a relatively untried charge that holds drug
suppliers responsible for customers' overdose deaths, cleaned up
evidence of a fatal heroin overdose while his partner drove the
lifeless victim to a Somerset hospital, according to police.

Somerset Borough police remained quiet about many of the angles in
the case, but arrest papers provided details in the arrest of Charles
Wuenstel, 39, jailed Monday for drug violations including a
little-used charge, drug delivery resulting in death.

The charge carries a five-year minimum sentence that seeks to hold
drug dealers responsible, even if they weren't there, when an
overdose death occurs.

The charge -- untested in court -- is a revamped version of a statute
the state Superior Court found unconstitutional two years ago. The
law appeared headed for a court challenge in Cambria County until a
25-year-old defendant pleaded no contest last month to other charges
tied to the heroin death of a 20-year-old friend.

A second person is likely to be arrested today or tomorrow in the
Somerset case, said Clifford Pile, the officer in charge of borough
police.

Paul Critchfield, 32, a Bakersville, Somerset County, father of two,
was pronounced dead at Somerset Hospital on Sunday afternoon, two
minutes after Somerset resident Kami Corden drove him there, then
left without offering any explanation, according to an arrest
affidavit.

When she found out that police were hunting her, she turned up that
night at the state police barracks near Somerset, telling
investigators that she had been Wuenstel's drug distributor since at
least last summer.

According to the affidavit, Corden said that Wuenstel showed up at
her home Sunday and gave her two packets of heroin to sell to
Critchfield. In turn, Critchfield turned up later that day, paid $40
for the drug, went to a bathroom to use it and never came out. Corden
told police she found Critchfield lifeless on the floor, the empty
packets near him and a syringe in his pocket.

Corden said that she and Wuenstel moved Critchfield's body to his own
car and that she drove it to the hospital while Wuenstel got rid of
the syringe.