Homicide Suspected After French Valley Girl Dies From Fentanyl

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — For the second time in a week, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department has announced a homicide arrest linked to a fentanyl death.

A man and a 16-year-old girl were found unresponsive at a residence in the 35000 block of Sugar Maple Street in French Valley around 7:04 p.m. Wednesday. Both people were hospitalized for suspected fentanyl poisoning, but the girl did not survive, according to sheriff's Sgt. Rick Espinoza.

Raymond Tyrrell, 18, of French Valley was arrested on suspicion of murder in the case, Espinoza said. It is unclear if he was the fentanyl survivor.

Tyrrell was being held at Southwest Detention Center with no bail set. He is due to appear in court Monday.

During a Feb. 22 press briefing that announced the county's first-ever murder charge against an alleged drug dealer who sold fentanyl-laced pills that ended in a person's death, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said prosecuting an overdose or drug-poisoning death as murder is not easy. Prosecutors must prove the accused is not only guilty of selling fentanyl but that he/she also had "specific knowledge" of the synthetic opioid's dangers.

"We are making it a goal [that] every death caused by fentanyl toxicity is being investigated as a potential homicide," Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said during Monday's briefing.

In the case announced Monday, prosecutors will try it under the "Watson murder rule," similar to legal precedence used when filing a second-degree murder charge against an intoxicated driver who ends up killing someone in a crash. The rule argues that intoxicated drivers have "implied malice" — they know ahead of time that their actions can have deadly consequences.

Most people who take pills containing fentanyl have no idea the dangerous synthetic opioid is in the drug they're taking. Fentanyl is very inexpensive to manufacture. The powder form is typically mixed into substances like powdered baby formula or other cost-effective products, then made/pressed into counterfeit pills. The fake pills are then fraudulently sold on the black market as oxycodone, Percocet or any number of other drugs. Fentanyl is also making its way into other street drugs like methamphetamine, according to Bianco.