COUPLE TO STAY IN JAIL IN OVERDOSE CASE

Judge Also Refuses To Reduce Bonds

A state judge ruled Tuesday that there is probable cause to hold on
second-degree murder charges a married couple accused of supplying drugs
that allegedly killed an 18-year-old woman last month.

Keli Robin Nunez, 20, and her husband, Wilfred "Billy" Nunez, 51, both of
2836 Kenilworth Drive in eastern St. Bernard Parish, were booked June 19
with second-degree murder. Each is being held in Parish Prison in lieu of
$1 million bond, authorities said.

State District Judge Jacques Sanborn also refused to reduce their bonds.
Had Sanborn ruled there wasn't probable cause to hold the Nunezes, they
would have been released from their bond obligation and freed, although
they still could have been prosecuted.

The Nunezes are accused of giving methadone wafers to Kecia Beck, 18, a St.
Bernard Parish woman who went into a drug-induced coma June 7 and died June
15 at Chalmette Medical Center.

Methadone is normally used to wean people off of heroin. Wilfred Nunez had
a legal prescription for the wafers.

After a friend of Beck's told detectives where she allegedly had obtained
the drug, the Nunezes were questioned and were booked on a little-used
charge that makes it second-degree murder for anyone to distribute
controlled dangerous drugs that result in another person's death,
regardless of whether they intended death or injury.

The maximum penalty for second-degree murder is life in prison with no
parole or sentence suspension.

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens has referred to the Beck death as
an example of the surging problem this year of prescription-drug overdose
deaths in St. Bernard Parish. He said his department will make a greater
effort to pursue murder charges in cases in which people may have died from
illegally dispensed drugs.

Sheriff's officials said there have been more than 40 overdose cases in St.
Bernard this year, many of which have led to deaths, although statistics
are sketchy.

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

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

Attorneys for the couple on Tuesday tried in court to show that authorities
don't know if Beck legally received methadone from clinics, which might
explain the methadone found in her system.

St. Bernard Parish's coroner, Dr. Bryan Bertucci, testified in the hearing
that there is no doubt the contributor to Beck's death was an overdose of
methadone.

The coroner said Beck had methadone and combinations of other drugs --
including marijuana, anti-depressants and nerve medication similar to Xanax
- -- in her blood stream. There was no sign of muscle relaxers, he said.

Keli Nunez's attorney is Mike Escudier. Wilfred Nunez is represented by
Bill Egan.