Wood County authorities arrested a Parkersburg man for first-degree murder after he allegedly sold a woman fentanyl and caused a deadly overdose.
Christopher Murvine, 27, is the second person jailed in the last week on murder charges in connection with an overdose.
Murvine sold $30 worth of a substance to Hannah Hescht, 23, in Parkersburg after they met outside a Foodland on Plum Street, according to a news release.
He reportedly told Hescht to be careful with the substance, which he described as "strong," according to the release.
On Jan. 25, the Williamstown Police Department responded to a home on West Sixth Street where they soon found Hescht unresponsive. Officials pronounced Hescht dead at Marietta Memorial Hospital in Ohio, and a coroner's office discovered she died from a fentanyl overdose, the complaint states.
A detective arrested Murvine about a month later on unrelated charges, and he allegedly admitted to selling Hescht methamphetamine the night before her death.
In a recorded phone call between Murvine and an unspecified person at the jail, Murvine reportedly said, "I told them I sold her ice. Buy me a little time," the release states. In a separate phone call, Murvine and an unknown person laugh after discussing how he should have lied to police. "I sold her heroin," he reportedly said.
Williamstown Police filed the charge of first-degree murder in conjunction with the Parkersburg Violent Crime and Narcotics Task Force.
Murvine is also being held on a charge of grand larceny, according to the Wood County Circuit Court.
He remained at North Central Regional Jail without bail Wednesday afternoon.
On April 20, the Putnam County Sheriff's Department arrested a Hurricane woman after she allegedly injected a man with heroin twice at her home on Poplar Fork Road.
Joney Farley, 35, reportedly injected Jeffrey Burdette with a mixture of heroin and water on March 15. Farley left Burdette at CAMC Teays Valley Hospital after he stopped breathing and became unconscious, and he later died at the hospital on March 19.
Putnam Sheriff Steve Deweese previously said Farley's arrest is the first time he can remember someone being charged with murder in relation to a drug overdose in the county.
Reach Giuseppe Sabella at giuseppe.sabella@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or @Gsabella on Twitter.