OXYCONTIN DEATH: PRISON TIME

A Richlands man who admitted to fatally injecting a partly paralyzed friend
with the powerful painkiller OxyContin was sentenced yesterday in a
Tazewell County court to 13 years and six months in prison.

Robert Stallard, 43, had pleaded guilty July 23 to felony murder in
connection with the fatal overdose of Nicholas Dickerson, a 40-year-old
drinking buddy of Stallard's who lived in the same apartment complex. By
pleading guilty to felony murder, Stallard acknowledged that he committed a
felony - distributing a drug - that resulted in death.

Authorities believe the murder conviction might be the first one in the
nation stemming from an OxyContin overdose.

Yesterday, following several hours of testimony, Tazewell Circuit Judge
Donald Mullins reduced the felony murder charge to second-degree murder. He
then sentenced Stallard to 15 years in prison for Dickerson's murder but
suspended five years. Mullins sentenced Stallard to five years for
distributing a drug but suspended two years of that term. Finally, the
judge gave Stallard six months in prison for the unlawful disposal of a
human body. Altogether: 13 years, six months.

Stallard could have received up to 81 years in prison.

According to Tazewell prosecutor Dennis Lee, Stallard sold Dickerson a 40mg
OxyContin pill on Sept. 3, then crushed the pill, dissolved it in water and
injected it into Dickerson's arm as the two sat at Stallard's kitchen
table. Dickerson went to lie down in a bedroom, and when Stallard later
found him dead, he dragged his friend's body outside and called 911.

Stallard admitted injecting the prescription painkiller into his friend,
but has denied selling him the drug.

OxyContin, a powerful morphine-like opioid intended to ease the suffering
of those in moderate to severe chronic pain, has been widely abused in
Southwest Virginia and other rural parts of the nation for several years.