SHERIFF VOWS CRACKDOWN ON OVERDOSE SUPPLIERS

Murder Charges May Apply After Fatalities

In light of surging prescription-drug overdose deaths in St. Bernard Parish
and the arrest last week of a couple accused of supplying drugs that killed
an 18-year-old woman, Sheriff Jack Stephens said his office will make a
greater effort to pursue murder charges in cases in which people may have
died from illegally dispensed drugs.

"Whenever we have an overdose death, we will take a hard look to see where
they got the substance," Stephens said Tuesday. "If we can make a case,
we'll do it."

Sheriff's officials say as many as 40 overdose cases have occurred in St.
Bernard this year, many of which have led to deaths, although figures are
sketchy.

State law permits a second-degree murder prosecution of anyone who
illegally dispenses drugs that kill someone, regardless of whether the
supplier intended to cause death or bodily harm, as is normally required
with murder prosecutions.

Kelli Robin Nunez, 20, and her husband, Wilfred "Billy" Nunez, 51, both of
2836 Kenilworth Drive in eastern St. Bernard, were booked June 19 with
second-degree murder and are being held in Parish Prison in lieu of $1
million bond, authorities said. They are accused of giving the drugs, a
mixture of methadone and muscle relaxers, to Kecia Beck of St. Bernard
Parish, a recent high school graduate who died of an overdose this month.

Sheriff's officials said it's the first time they can recall during
Stephens' 18-year tenure that anyone has been booked with murder for
supplying drugs that caused a death.

"It's a law that hasn't been applied aggressively," Stephens said. "But
having the experiences we've had, I think it's something we'll take a hard
look at to run an investigation back to see where the victim scored the dope."

"I think we have an obligation to do that," he said.

The problem, Stephens said, is that finding out where a drug was obtained
is difficult unless someone witnesses the transaction or the victim is able
to implicate the supplier before death occurs .

In the case of Beck, who reportedly told a friend where she got the drugs
before she lapsed into a coma on June 7 and died June 15, sheriff's
detectives had a place to start their investigation, Stephens said. "We
grabbed them (the suspects) and they confessed" to their involvement.

Kelli Nunez admitted giving Beck half a methadone wafer dissolved in water,
along with four Soma muscle relaxers, investigators said last week. Wilfred
Nunez said his wife removed the methadone from his legal prescription
without his permission, but he admitted he threw away the bottle after
learning Beck had been hospitalized, investigators said.

"Irrespective of lack of intent, under the law you still have to prove the
victim was provided the drug, and therein lies the challenge of making a
criminal case," Stephens said.

Combinations of methadone, a drug normally used to wean people from heroin
addiction; OxyContin; Vicodin; heroin; and crack cocaine are among the
drugs used by overdose victims, authorities said.

"We may be seeing a higher incidence of overdose deaths because of
prescription drugs than we've ever seen for illegal drugs such as cocaine,
crack or even heroin," Stephens said.

St. Bernard Parish Coroner Bryan Bertucci said Beck died of an overdose of
multiple substances, including methadone, but that the amounts involved
were unclear.

Mixing methadone with another drug such as muscle relaxers "would compound
the sedative effect," Bertucci said, and make it harder for the body to
metabolize the drugs.

Bertucci said trying to prosecute people for overdose deaths could be tough
because sometimes it is "difficult to isolate one drug as a cause of death"
when several drugs have been taken. "And they (the victims) may have
procured them from more than one source."

"If you prosecute someone, you have to have the quantity of the amount of
drugs they have received. That's a problem" because making that
determination costs the parish more money in more exacting toxicology
tests, Bertucci said.