WILSON COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) – A Wilson County man is behind bars charged with an overdose death.
The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office arrested 35-year-old Devonty Pitt and charged him with felony aggravated death by distribution of controlled substances.
The sheriff’s office began investigating back in May when deputies and detectives responded to the overdose death of 33-year-old Cierra Parker Barnes.
Investigators say it was determined that Pitt supplied the toxic narcotics that led to the fatal overdose.
Pitt has had several previous possession with intent to sell and distribute charges for substances such as heroin and cocaine and is also a convicted felon due to these charges.
He is in the Edgecombe County Detention Center under no bond.
Tina and Tom Johnson lost their daughter Brittany to a meth overdose in 2022. Nearly two years later, they’re still trying to find out what really happened — and secure justice for her. But they’ve hit some challenging roadblocks.
Tom Johnson shows a photo he took of several syringes he found in Brittany’s house after her death.
Since his daughter passed away nearly two years ago, Tom Johnson has felt like a man obsessed.
“I mean, all I think about is this. I mean, I can’t, you know, have any relief from it,” he told WHQR. “And she haunts me in my dreams.”
On December 26, 2022, he and his wife got devastating news: their daughter Brittany Johnson had died of a meth overdose. Brittany had been sober for 18 months, going through drug court in Brunswick County. She left behind a five-year-old daughter.
“She was just full of life,” said her mother Tina Johnson. “Loving life, loving her daughter, looking forward to overcoming all of her past mistakes.”
Brittany’s death came as a shock to her parents. In the months since her passing, they’ve been trying to understand the circumstances that led to her death. But the Johnsons say they’ve faced some roadblocks from the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office as they try to understand what happened.
A tragedy, then questions
For Christmas 2022, the Johnsons had gone to the mountains with Brittany’s daughter Ava and the rest of the family. Brittany, who lived just down the road from her parents with her boyfriend, was supposed to join them, but called on Christmas Day saying she had been having car trouble. She said she would catch them back home in Supply.
Then, at 3:26 a.m., they got a call from Brittany’s boyfriend. The paramedics were at their house, trying to revive Brittany from an overdose.
“And then someone did confirm that she was actually dead,” Tina said.
The family immediately got up and drove back to the coast. When they got back to Supply six hours later, Brittany’s house stood empty. Law enforcement had already come and gone from the place, taking Brittany with them. According to the Johnsons, they wouldn’t see their daughter’s body for another four days.
“[The sheriff’s office] never called us, never. We had to call them,” said Tom.
“It’s not like TV,” Tina added.
In the days following her death, the Johnsons felt like the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office did not do enough to properly investigate Brittany’s death. They couldn’t comprehend certain decisions the office made. For one, they didn’t understand why the sheriff’s office didn’t treat Brittany’s boyfriend, who was with her at the time of her death, as a suspect.
“We just wanted to know: why is this guy out of jail, and why is he going to a rehab?” Tom said. “They just simply said, ‘Oh, we’ve talked to [Brittany’s boyfriend].'”
Nor did they understand BCSO’s investigation of Brittany’s house. The sheriff’s office did find drugs in the house, and took some in as evidence. But upon getting back to Supply, the Johnsons found many other substances, along with needles and other paraphernalia, stashed throughout their daughter’s house.
“My son found some, you know, some jar of drugs,” said Tom. “There was a fully loaded needle. And a used needle.”
The Johnsons wanted to prosecute Brittany’s drug dealers through death by distribution. North Carolina’s death-by-distribution law passed in 2019. It criminalized the sale — and after the law was changed in 2023, any distribution — of drugs which later cause fatal overdoses.
So the Johnsons didn’t understand why the drugs they recovered from Brittany’s house were left behind. Couldn’t they serve as crucial evidence — as a way to identify her dealers?
They asked the sheriff’s office what to do with it all. The Johnsons told WHQR they were instructed to destroy everything.
“They didn’t want nothing to do with it,” Tina said.
It was around this time that the Johnsons hired their longtime friend Patti Hewett as a private investigator. Hewett had previously worked at BCSO. She was bewildered by their instructions to destroy the drugs.
“I have never — 30 years in law enforcement — I have never destroyed a drug like that or told anybody to destroy a drug,” Hewett told WHQR.
Tom Johnson shows a photo he took of several syringes he found in Brittany’s house after her death.
‘Turn around and go back. That car is bugged.’
And then, several months after Brittany passed, her mother found something strange.
Her parents still had Brittany’s Volkswagen Beetle. Brittany and her boyfriend had shared the car, which her parents had given to Brittany after she graduated from drug court. One day in March 2023, Tina was trying to connect her phone to the car’s Bluetooth speakers.
“I’m sitting in my driveway and I’m trying to figure out how to program my phone,” she said. “I’m looking down — it said Surveillance Unit 098. I’m like, ‘what the hell?'”
Her daughter’s car had a list of recently paired devices. One of them was named “BCSO Surveillance Unit 098.”
Tina was baffled.
“So I’m driving and I texted Patti [Hewett],” she said. “And I said, ‘you ain’t gonna believe this – this is what I found.’ And she’s like, ‘where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m right here,’ and she’s – ‘Turn around and go back. That car is bugged.’ I’m like ‘what?’ ‘Turn around!'”
The Johnsons searched the car from top to bottom, but found nothing. They didn’t know what to make of it. Was it a prank? Or was it something more serious — someone from the sheriff’s office monitoring Brittany’s whereabouts?
There was more. The Johnsons say BCSO examined Brittany’s phone and didn’t find anything concrete. But after Hewett examined the phone, she found a screenshot of Brittany’s settings dated November 8, 2022. It showed her phone pairing with that same Bluetooth device: BCSO Surveillance Unit 098.
The Johnsons began to wonder if Brittany had been a confidential informant, or if someone she was close to had been a confidential informant. It was hard to tell from what was on Brittany’s phone.
“It’s like Brittany doesn’t exist on that phone from November the 29th, 2022,” Hewett told WHQR. “Her pictures are gone. Everything’s gone off of that phone.”
One thing was for sure: the Johnsons felt like they could not trust the sheriff’s office.
Tense meetings
In spite of their doubts, the Johnsons still cooperated with law enforcement. In April 2023, they scheduled a meeting with District Attorney Jon David. The hope was that they could come up with a plan for prosecuting Brittany’s dealers.
Tom said the first meeting went well. David promised them he’d look into the circumstances of Brittany’s death, and set up a second meeting. This time, Hewett would come along to share information she had uncovered about Brittany’s dealers. So would Sheriff Brian Chism, who’d just been sworn in to replace longtime Sheriff John Ingram, and who the Johnsons hoped would offer some answers.
But when they met at the DA’s office in May, Chism was not there. In his stead were case investigator Kip Hester, deputy Tony Henson, and Glenn Emery, who serves as attorney for the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office.
The Johnsons asked the sheriff’s office whether or not Brittany had been a confidential informant. According to them, the sheriff’s office said no, but would not answer questions about whether Brittany’s boyfriend, dealers, or other acquaintances had been confidential informants.
They also told the Johnsons they would not pursue death by distribution.
“I tried to be amicable with him in the meeting with John David,” said Tom. “I just tried to simply say, ‘I just want to know what happened. Here’s a little bit of what we have.'”
But Tina said after some back-and-forth, the sheriff’s representatives just left.
“Next thing I know, Tony Henson said, ‘Let’s go boys,’ got up and walked out of the meeting. They’d had enough,” she said. “They told Patti they’d had enough of the drama.”
Emery told WHQR that he was “not comfortable” commenting on his meetings with the Johnsons.
But in an email to WHQR, he did explain why the sheriff didn’t push for death by distribution charges.
“After a very thorough investigation,” he wrote, “there was no clear suspect and no clear sale of at least one controlled substance. Investigators were unable to determine where Brittany Johnson procured the Methamphetamine that caused her death, much less whether it was sold, traded, or simply given to her. This has been explained to the family on several occasions by the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office.”
Emery also addressed the Bluetooth pairing in Brittany’s car.
“I can assure you that the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office had nothing to do with the pairing of any device to Brittany’s vehicle. Further, we offered to conduct a forensic analysis of the vehicle to attempt to provide the family with answers, but they declined our offer,” he wrote.
Tina said she rejected the offer for one simple reason — she didn’t trust BSCO. She thought they’d tamper with or remove the device.
“Kip Hester called me I think two days later and wanted to know if I would be willing to take that car to Carolina Beach Police Department for them to extract it,” she told WHQR. “And I said, ‘Let me think about that for a minute… No. And don’t call me ever again.'”
Emery did not respond to follow-up questions about BCSO’s instructions to destroy Brittany’s drugs, about his meetings with the Johnsons, or about any potential efforts by BCSO to secure justice by bringing in federal law enforcement to pursue U.S. death by distribution statutes.
Not just a number
The sheriff’s office closed the case on July 31st, 2023. But Tina told WHQR that has no bearing on her and her husband.
“If they think I’m gonna stop, I’m not. I’m not gonna,” she said.
On June 23, 2024, the Johnsons attended a meet-and-greet with Sheriff Chism hosted by the North Brunswick Republican Club. In an exchange recorded in a Facebook video, they stood up and started asking Chism about the investigation into Brittany’s death — specifically, about which elements of death by distribution Brittany’s case lacked. North Carolina’s death-by-distribution law changed in 2023, making it possible to prosecute not just dealers, but anyone sharing drugs which later caused fatal overdoses.
“To answer your questions, yes, the elements changed,” the sheriff said during the meet-and-greet. “Unfortunately, they don’t retro. We cannot go back. So before, when your incident happened, you had to prove a sale. We couldn’t do that.”
“It’s not an incident,” Tom responded. “It’s a death.”
Brittany’s case is, to be sure, a complex one. And with so many people dying of overdoses in eastern North Carolina, the Johnsons say it’s easy to see how a police force could let a case like theirs go.
“‘Oh, well, we’ll look into it.’ I never heard anything. Nothing. Because [Chism] didn’t care,” Tom said. “Anything about it… This is another drug addict dead? Who cares?”
“To the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office, ODs just seem to be a number,” Hewett said.
But the Johnsons still want answers on how their daughter’s investigation was handled and why.
“I want them to tell us what they found. They said our daughter died of an overdose. Case closed. No elements of a crime,” Tina said. “Okay. Well, y’all were in that house for two and a half hours while she lay there. And you don’t know anything?”
Currently, the Johnsons are trying to obtain the district attorney’s 75-page investigative report into Brittany’s death. Emery told WHQR that they won’t show it to the Johnsons without a court order, saying the report does not count as a public record.
The Johnsons say they’ll do whatever it takes.
“We just want to know what happened to our girl,” Tina said.
A Harnett County man with a history of law enforcement interaction for the past 20 years has been indicted by a grand jury for distributing fentanyl that killed four people on the morning of March 28, 2020.
The jury returned a true bill of indictment on Feb. 26 charging Gerard LaSalle McLean, 37, of 446 Raynor McLamb Road, Bunnlevel, with four counts each of death by distribution and aggravated death by distribution.
“There were two scenes,” explained Harnett County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Aaron Meredith. The first victim, Shannon Lynette McLean, was located at 112 Blake St. in Lillington at 12:49 a.m. Three other victims were found dead in a car located at 242 Nutgrass Road in Bunnlevel at 7:37 a.m.
“There were others who overdosed at both locations and survived,” Meredith shared.
DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. — Six months after a woman died by an overdose, Davidson County Sheriff’s Office said it has arrested the person who supplied her the drugs.
The investigation began on January 28, when deputies said they responded to the death of an adult female in the Wallburg community. Then in July, detectives received toxicology results from the state medical examiner’s office that confirmed the death was due to fentanyl.
As a result, detectives arrested 47-year-old Wayne Phillips on July 26. He was charged with one count of death by distribution.
Phillips was ordered to be held at the Davidson County Detention Center.
It has been reported that ten people in North Carolina die each day as a result of fentanyl poisoning and over 375 people in Davidson County have also died as a result since 2015. Recently Davidson County has been inundated with more deaths associated with fentanyl. It is saddening to hear the number of individuals that have lost their lives from fentanyl poisoning and the statistics are as shocking when the age range of those killed by fentanyl is exposed. Locally, there have been countless arrests made by law enforcement of persons selling the deadly drug within our own community. There have also been arrests made of parents and caretakers of children that are being poisoned after ingesting the drug, unaware. This dangerous drug effects everyone and has the potential of killing someone that each of us know and loves, if it hasn’t already. It is time to end the excuses that too many live by, that it is not our problem, because it now is.
The General Assembly recognizes that deaths due to opioids are devastating families and communities across North Carolina. The General Assembly finds that the opioid crisis is overwhelming medical providers engaged in the lawful distribution of controlled substances and is straining prevention and treatment efforts. As a result of these related deaths, the General Assembly enacts this law to encourage effective intervention by the criminal justice system to hold illegal drug dealers accountable for criminal conduct that results in death.
The older version of the law stated that a person is guilty of death by distribution if all of the following requirements are met:
The person unlawfully sold at least one controlled substance such as an opioid cocaine or methamphetamine
The substance sold cause the death of the user
The person who sold the drug did not act with malice
The crime was a Class C felony, which usually results in a 5-12 year prison sentence with a maximum sentence of 19 years.
The updated version of the law removes the malice requirement or proof that the drug was sold. Under the new law, perpetrators can be charged with a Class C felony if they simply distribute a drug such as methamphetamine, fentanyl or cocaine that leads to a victim’s death. If the perpetrator did act with malice, the distributor could be charged with a Class B2 felony.
On August 10th from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Breeden Amphitheater in Lexington, A Raced Against Drugs (RAD) is hoping to educate the community and to counteract fentanyl use and distribution with their event entitled A Day of Recovery. In addition, the event organizers and directors of the non profit organization, Michael and Lorrie Loomis will increase awareness of the life-saving drug naloxone, which is a synthetic drug, similar to morphine, that blocks opiate receptors in the nervous system. Naloxone is used in the case of overdose.
RAD is a passion project for the Loomis’ after their son, James Allen Loomis passed away from fentanyl poisoning on April, 22, 2021, making him “Forever 27.”
The RAD event is for everyone and will feature numerous experts offering kind advice for all that attend and live entertainment. There will also be food trucks, a 50/50 raffle and much more. For information please visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1374857129674223. To contribute to the organization to reach the directors email raceagainstdrugs2024@gmail.com.
It is time to eliminate the threat of fentanyl in our community and across NC.
BEAUFORT, N.C. (WNCT) — A 42-year-old woman pled guilty to death by distribution of controlled substances in the death of 30-year-old Pawnee Schmitz.
Carteret County Sheriff’s deputies found Schmitz’s phone at the scene and found conversations regarding drug purchases with multiple individuals the night before Schmitz’s death.
Search warrants for Schmitz’s phone records resulted in the arrest of three people including Melissa Mastropierro. Mastropierro, 42, of Atlantic, was sentenced to just more than five years to eight years in prison.
According to District Attorney Scott Thomas, on May 29, 2023, Carteret County Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to Community Road in Davis. Schmitz’s father made the call to law enforcement, reporting that he found Schmitz lying prone and unconscious on the bathroom floor. EMS arrived to find Schmitz deceased.
Drug paraphernalia and two small bags of methamphetamine and fentanyl were discovered close to Schmitz’s body, according to the sheriff’s office. An autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was from methamphetamine and fentanyl toxicity.
A Wilson man has been charged with felony death by distribution in a teenager’s death from fentanyl intoxication last year.
Albert Graham Green, 23, was initially arrested on Oct. 28 and charged with selling and delivering a Schedule II controlled substance in connection with the juvenile’s death, according to a release from Sgt. Eric McInerny, public information officer with the Wilson Police Department.
Green was given a $100,000 secured bond and placed in the Wilson County Detention Center.
On Tuesday, Green was charged with felony death by distribution.
Green turned himself in on Wednesday and was released on a $1 million unsecured bond.
McInerny said officers with the Wilson Police Department were dispatched to 1705 Hillcrest Drive for a report of an unconscious person at 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 25.
Dispatchers told police that a 17-year-old boy was unresponsive and not breathing, McInerny said. Officers arrived on scene and Wilson County EMS pronounced the juvenile deceased.
Emily Robinson was convicted of supplying the drugs that killed a man by overdose back in 2021.
ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — A jury heard closing arguments Tuesday in the death by distribution case involving the Alamance County Sheriff’s daughter.
Emily Robinson faces several drug-related charges. The biggest among them —death by distribution.
Possession with intent to sell or deliver a controlled substance
Maintaining a building for sale of controlled substances
Possession of drug paraphernalia
Sale or delivery of controlled substance
Death by distribution
The jury found Robinson guilty of death by distribution. Court documents show she will serve and active sentence between 60 to 84 months.
Robinson is accused of supplying the fentanyl that killed Robert James Starner Jr. on September 15, 2021. The state medical examiner’s office determined Starner died from one or a combination of fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine.
The prosecution said witness interviews, phone messages, and GPS all indicated that Starner met up with Robinson to buy fentanyl right before he died.
The defense argued that it could have been other drugs that contributed to Starner’s death rather than the fentanyl that was allegedly supplied by Robinson.
CABARRUS COUNTY, N.C. — A person accused of supplying the drugs that led to a man’s death pleaded guilty in court on Friday.
The hearing was a long time coming for the family of Marshall Abbott, who died due to fentanyl poisoning in June 2022. He died one day before his 30th birthday.
Aaron Furr was arrested in connection with Abbott’s death and charged with death by distribution. Police say he supplied the fentanyl that killed Abbott.
In court Friday, Furr pleaded guilty to the charge. He was sentenced to about five and a half to seven and a half years in prison.
His family sighed with relief when Furr was sentenced.
“I’m a mom. I fought for Marshall his whole life and I’ll always fight for him,” Beth Abernathy said.
Abernathy has fond memories of her son.
“He was an amazing father and amazing son, an amazing friend. And this world is a darker place without him,” she said.
Her husband, Matt Abernathy, said losing Marshall changed everything for him.
“It’s a before and an after — Before Marshall and after Marshall — and life is just different,” he said.
The district attorney’s office sent a statement to Channel 9, saying, “it was an honor to advocate for justice for Marshall Abbott and his family.” But Beth Abernathy said justice won’t stop here.
“Marshall’s case will set a precedent for every family that has to go through this,” she said. “We’ve created a roadmap here in Cabarrus County, and we have proven that you can successfully investigate and prosecute these cases. And we will stand by every fentanyl family in our county and across the state to make sure that every fentanyl dealer is punished to the full extent of the law.”
After the plea hearing, Marshall Abbott’s family and other advocates who came to support them met with the district attorney and assistant district attorney. Goetz was in that meeting while the DA thanked the family for fighting so hard and talked about work they will do in the future to fight for other families.
RALEIGH, N.C. – Reginald Webb, a 33-year-old resident of Garner, has been sentenced to 198 months in prison for distributing heroin and fentanyl in the Raleigh area. On April 11, 2017, Webb was the source of the fentanyl distributed to a 22-year-old woman who overdosed and died. Webb pled guilty on January 5, 2024. Webb’s co-defendant in this case, as well as an additional individual who was indicted separately, have previously pled guilty to charges and are awaiting sentencing.
“In 2023, there were more than 4,000 suspected overdose deaths in North Carolina. Drug dealers who lace fentanyl into their supply and prey on vulnerable individuals who have an addiction should know that the U.S. Attorney’s Office will use every tool available to seek justice for victims of fentanyl poisoning and their families” said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley. “Webb’s actions show a complete disregard for human life motivated by sheer greed.”
