MURRIETA (CNS) - A young man accused with a cohort of supplying a lethal dose of fentanyl to a 16-year-old French Valley girl must stand trial for second-degree murder, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Jeremiah David Carlton, 20, of Canyon Lake, is accused with Raymond Gene Tyrrell, 20, of French Valley, in the death of the teenager, identified in court documents only as "J.G."
Following a preliminary hearing at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta, Riverside County Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson found there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial on the murder count, as well as transportation of controlled substances for sale, possession of controlled substances for sale and a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury allegation.
The judge scheduled a post-preliminary hearing arraignment for Aug. 8 and ordered that Carlton remain held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Byrd Detention Center.
Tyrrell is charged separately with murder for the same alleged offense and is slated for trial in September. He's also being held at the Murrieta jail on $1 million bail.
According to sheriff's Sgt. Rick Espinoza, Tyrrell and Carlton allegedly provided the drugs that led to the death of the girl on the night of Feb. 24, 2021, at a residence in the 35000 block of Sugar Maple Street, near Leon Road.
Espinoza said deputies were called to the location to investigate two possible fentanyl poisonings and discovered the girl and a man, whose identity was not released, comatose. Both were taken to a regional trauma center, where the man was revived but the girl died due to the toxic ingestion.
"Detectives conducted an investigation and developed information that this was possibly a homicide," the sergeant said.
He declined to elaborate on the circumstances.
Tyrrell was summoned to the sheriff's Southwest station in Murrieta a day later and interviewed by detectives, after which he was taken into custody. Carlton was served with an arrest warrant and taken into custody at his residence.
Neither defendant has documented prior felony convictions.
Since February 2021, more than two dozen people countywide have been charged in connection with fentanyl poisonings.
According to public safety officials, there were 503 confirmed fentanyl-related fatalities countywide last year, compared to just under 400 in 2021, a 200-fold increase from 2016, when there were only two.
Fentanyl is manufactured in foreign labs, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which says the synthetic opioid is smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by cartels.
The drug is 80-100 times more potent than morphine and can be mixed into any number of street narcotics and prescription drugs, without a user knowing what he or she is consuming. Ingestion of only two milligrams can be fatal.
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