New Hanover County — A man has been charged in connection with a fatal overdose in Wilmington, according to the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies said detectives responded July 4 to a location on Carolina Beach Road to investigate the overdose death. After an investigation, detectives identified Rondell Kimpatrick Davis as a suspect.
Davis was charged Oct. 10 with death by distribution and a pretrial release violation. He is being held at the New Hanover County Detention Facility under a $550,000 secured bond.
BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A 22-year-old North Carolina man has been charged with death by distribution following an investigation into a fatal overdose in Brunswick County.
According to the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office, Dallas Sutton died from an overdose on July 16, 2026.
Investigators said methamphetamine and fentanyl were found at the scene, and toxicology results later confirmed both substances were in Sutton’s system at the time of her death.
Detectives with the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division and Vice and Narcotics Division identified Jordan Anthony Scott, 22, of Stoneville, as a suspect.
According to investigators, evidence indicated Scott supplied controlled substances to Sutton before her death.
Scott has since been charged with death by distribution.
The Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office said it remains committed to investigating overdose deaths and holding those responsible for distributing dangerous drugs accountable.
Two Sanford men face aggravated death by distribution charges after separate Harnett County warrants allege each delivered a controlled substance to the same woman in connection with her death.
Carlos Honorio Peoples, left, and Demetrios Antwon Faucette, right.
Demetrios Antwon Faucette, 40, of Highland Circle, and Carlos Honorio Peoples, 39, of Hawkins Avenue, are charged in separate cases involving the death of Mary Yarter. Court records list Aug. 23 as the alleged offense date in both cases.
According to the arrest warrants, Faucette and Peoples are each accused of delivering a controlled substance to Yarter, whose ingestion of the substance allegedly caused her death.
Neither warrant identifies the controlled substance.
Court records do not explain whether the men are accused of acting together, whether the charges involve the same delivery of drugs or what role investigators allege each man played in the circumstances leading to Yarter’s death.
An obituary for Mary Elise Yarter, 26, of Sanford, published by Miller-Boles Funeral Home, lists Carlos Peoples as her husband. The obituary does not include a middle name for Peoples.
Both aggravated death by distribution charges are classified as Class B1 felonies.
Leonardo Castellanos of the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office is listed as the complainant in both cases. Warrants for both men were issued Oct. 1.
Faucette was arrested Oct. 4 and made his first appearance by video the following day. District Court Judge Terry F. Rose set his bond at $500,000 secured, and attorney Jonathan W. Stillo was appointed to represent him.
RALEIGH, N.C. – A federal judge sentenced Kenneth Omar Roger Chung, also known as “Skully”, 53, of Raleigh, NC, to 27 years in federal prison for distributing fentanyl that led to the overdose death of a 26-year-old Raleigh man. In addition, he was also sentenced for conspiracy to possess with intent to sell fentanyl, meth, and cocaine. Chung pleaded guilty to the charges on May 20, 2026.
“When you sell drugs, you know people can die. This isn’t just everyday dealing. He chose profit over human life. Chung kept pushing poison even after he knew someone had died, just went right back out looking for his next customer. This 27-year federal sentence protects the people of the Eastern District of North Carolina for decades and delivers the serious punishment his actions deserved and demanded. The message is simple: Drugs kill. Prison follows. Do the right thing,” said U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle.
On March 28, 2023, the Raleigh Police Department responded to a 911 call and found a 26-year-old man dead from a drug overdose. Officers seized heroin, purple fentanyl powder, and 11 Xanax pills from his backpack. An autopsy confirmed he died from a fentanyl overdose. Evidence on his cell phone showed Chung had delivered the drugs the night before. Soon afterward, law enforcement conducted several controlled drug buys, including purple fentanyl, directly from Chung and his co-defendant, Jermaine Robinson.
Read the original article on the Partnership for Safe Medicines website.
Three senior employees of a pill press company have been arrested as the U.S. House unanimously passes the Stop Pills That Kill Act.
Two principal managers and one former long-time employee at LFA Machines, a company selling pill presses and tableting machines, have been arrested. Federal investigators say years-long investigations have not only led to the seizure of the company’s machines at clandestine labs nationwide, but also allege the men sold products to consumers knowing, intending, or having reasonable cause to believe they would be used to manufacture counterfeit pills. In August, an Arizona grand jury indicted LFA Machines and the three men on six counts that each carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison and fines.
This comes as the U.S. House unanimously passed the Stop Pills That Kill Act (H.R. 8005), legislation that is aimed at disrupting the use of these illicit pill presses to manufacture counterfeit pills. The bill would require pill presses and key components to be serialized, strengthen penalties for removing identifiers or knowingly supplying equipment for illegal drug production, and direct the DEA to develop a strategy addressing counterfeit pills containing fentanyl and other dangerous substances. The legislation comes amid continued pill press seizures nationwide, including 13 states identified in PSM’s latest report and 29 machines seized by the DEA during a recent enforcement initiative.
A 35-year-old Raleigh man has been charged with death by distribution after a 56-year-old Wendell woman fatally overdosed on fentanyl she allegedly bought from him. Jimmie Gerrell McKinnie was already sitting in jail on other Wake County charges when investigators tied him to the woman’s death, and he remained jailed without bail as of Wednesday morning.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, McKinnie is charged with death by distribution and conspiracy to sell or deliver a Schedule II controlled substance. Court records cited by the paper show the alleged fentanyl sale happened on June 18, 2025, and public records indicate the woman died the very next day, June 19, 2025.
How Investigators Say They Caught McKinnie Selling Fentanyl
The case against McKinnie did not start with the Wendell woman’s death. The News & Observer’s report notes that the Raleigh Police Department opened an investigation into him in February 2025 after receiving an anonymous complaint alleging he was selling fentanyl. That inquiry led to a separate charge: trafficking fentanyl by possession tied to a February 2025 incident, for which McKinnie posted a $3,000 secured bail bond, court records show.
The same reporting states that investigators later witnessed McKinnie selling suspected drugs to a woman at a Burger King on Rock Quarry Road. The account also describes a March search application that described McKinnie himself as a validated gang member, and it references a confidential informant who obtained a price quote from McKinnie for fentanyl.
A Long History of Drug Charges in Wake County
Court records reviewed by the outlet show McKinnie has been convicted of drug-related charges several times in Wake County, including a possession of heroin conviction in May 2019. By the time the death by distribution charge was filed, he was already being held in jail on several pending Wake County charges, and per the same account, he remained in custody without bail as of Wednesday morning.
Wake County runs a drug overdose prevention coalition that connects residents to educational resources and tracks metrics like treatment access, according to the county’s Wake County government page. The county also references a methadone clinic in North Raleigh that offers medication-assisted therapy and counseling for people seeking help overcoming addiction to heroin, fentanyl and other opioids, per the county’s opioid settlement page.
A Boone woman has been charged with death by distribution in connection with the November 2025 overdose death of her son, according to court records and reporting by multiple media outlets.
Shari Rogers Treadway
Shari Rogers Treadway, 66, of Boone, a former nurse at Watauga Medical Center, was arrested Wednesday evening, Sept. 16, by the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant from the Boone Police Department. She faces a charge of death by distribution (delivery), a Class C felony, in addition to embezzlement and drug diversion charges. Court dates are scheduled for Oct. 5 and Oct. 19.
Court documents list Nov. 6, 2025, as the date of the offenses. Investigators allege that Treadway, who had access to controlled substances through her nursing position, diverted Adderall and hydromorphone — both Schedule II controlled substances — and that she delivered fentanyl and cocaine to her son, Seth Treadway, that same day. The ingestion of those substances is alleged to have proximately caused his death.
The embezzlement and drug diversion charge was originally filed in January and was indicted by a Watauga County grand jury in March. The North Carolina Board of Nursing has since suspended Treadway’s license. In its filing, the board said some of the controlled substances found in her home “allegedly matched the hospital lot numbers” tied to inventory missing from Watauga Medical Center. The board also confirmed that Seth Treadway was her son.
Death by distribution is a felony under North Carolina law (G.S. 14-18.4), enacted in 2019 and expanded in 2023 in response to the opioid crisis. The law applies when someone unlawfully delivers or sells certain controlled substances and a user dies as a proximate result.
