Drugs are related to crime in a variety of ways. The most obvious charges that come up are use, possession, manufacture, and distribution of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and amphetamines. Drugs can also be related to crime by the effects they have on the user’s behavior or by becoming the occasion for other illegal activity. This includes drug-related homicides.
Prosecutors have charged a 22-year-old Romeoville woman incarcerated on two Will County drug convictions with drug-induced homicide. The latter charged was connected to the 2011 death of a Plainfield-area man, who reportedly overdosed on heron. The young man had allegedly overdosed the day after the Romeoville woman provided him with the drugs.
The young man was one of 30 persons who died from drug overdoses involving heroin as the sole or primary agent back in 2011. That year, there was one other person younger than 21 who died of heroin overdose.
Sources said it isn’t clear whether there are any charges pending against anyone other than the Romeoville woman in the case. She was sentenced last May to three years in prison after pleading guilty to possession of a narcotic in 2011 and possession of a controlled substance in 2012.
She is the second person this week to be charged with the crime of drug-induced homicide, a Class X felony with a sentencing range of 6 to 30 years. The other defendant is a 21-year-old man charged in connection with the 2012 heroin-related death of a 32-year-old Orlando Park man.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “Woman, 22, charged with drug-induced homicide,” Dennis Sullivan, March 6, 2013
