A 31-year-old Lake Dallas man has been charged with murder after knowingly selling fentanyl-laced drugs to a man who then overdosed, according to the Denton Police Department.
On Jan. 21, Denton police responded to a report of an unconscious person in the 500 block of Inman Street, where 26-year-old Dylan King was pronounced dead, according to a Denton PD news release. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled King’s cause of death as combined cocaine and fentanyl toxicity.
Through their investigation, Denton PD detectives learned that the victim had obtained narcotics containing fentanyl from a co-worker, Pedro Martinez, according to the news release. Detectives interviewed Martinez in the Denton County Jail, where he was being held on other charges, and he told them that he had sold the narcotics to King and that he was aware they contained fentanyl.
On Tuesday, detectives obtained a warrant for Martinez for murder. Martinez is currently in the Denton County Jail, with bail not yet set.
This is the fifth fentanyl-related murder charge in Denton since a state law went into effect on Sept. 1, 2023, that created a criminal offense of murder for supplying fentanyl that results in death.
