DUBOIS – A DuBois man charged with possessing a large amount of heroin in March is facing an additional charge of drug delivery resulting in death in connection with the overdose of his girlfriend.
Patrick O’Brien, 37, was originally charged with a felony count of manufacture/delivery/possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, and misdemeanor counts of tampering with physical evidence and obstructing the administration of law.
Later additional charges of involuntary manslaughter and drug delivery resulting in death were added to the case but dismissed by former District Judge Pat Ford after a preliminary hearing in June.
The felony drug delivery resulting in death charge was refiled last week by Sandy Township police.
According to the new affidavit, an autopsy done on March 30, determined the cause of death to be a multi-drug overdose of Fentanyl and morphine.
The doctor noted in his report that there was a remarkably high concentrate of Fentanyl in the victim’s blood. She had a concentrate of 82 ng/ml of Fentanyl and 55 ng/ml of morphine, according to the criminal complaint.
A lab test showed that the narcotics found at the scene contained Fentanyl and heroin.
The original affidavit detailed how police arrived in response to a report of a female overdosing on drugs at a Carson Avenue residence on March 28.
They encountered O’Brien trying to grab items from a desk while emergency personnel were performing CPR on the woman in a bedroom.
He was ordered to leave the room, which he did with an officer going with him.
A few of the stamp bags found at the scene still had pieces of a green straw in them, indicating someone had been snorting the heroin.
The EMTs were then advised the woman, identified as Donna Smith, 27, may have overdosed on drugs.
Police reportedly found a large sum of cash, a scale and 100 stamp bags of suspected heroin in the bedroom.
Downstairs, an officer sitting with O’Brien, said O’Brien jumped up and took off running to the basement stairs where he seemed to throw an item into the dark basement.
O’Brien reportedly admitted he threw a metal container into the basement because he did not want police to find the heroin that was in it.
The container was recovered and inside officers located numerous bundles of drugs for delivery and a brick of stamp bags of heroin packaged for delivery, according to the report.
When asked what had happened that night, O’Brien said he believed the woman while sitting at the desk, had used several bags of heroin to shoot up before she laid down on the bed.
O’Brien continued to say that he then sat at the desk where he snorted a bag of heroin.
He left her to go downstairs to get some food and when he came back, she did not appear to be breathing.
O’Brien told investigators that he put his head on her chest and couldn’t hear anything. When he saw her lips had turned blue, he yelled for help and called 911, police said.
In response, another man at the residence came into the room and tried to perform life-saving measures on her.
This witness reported to police that O’Brien kept pushing him away and would not let him perform CPR on the woman.
O’Brien is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Nov. 20 on the new charge.
He is currently free on $50,000 bail in the original case.