A North Texas man is now facing murder charges some five months after a coworker he sold drugs to died from an overdose.
Pedro Martinez, 31, of Lake Dallas, has been charged with murder for allegedly selling cocaine laced with fentanyl to his coworker, per a press release from the Denton Police Department.
On January 21, officers responded to the 500 block of Inman Street after receiving a report of an unconscious man who was later identified as 26-year-old Dylan King.
King was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office later determined that King died from a combination of cocaine and fentanyl toxicity.
During the ensuing investigation, detectives learned that King had obtained the drugs from his Martinez. Detectives interviewed Martinez at the Denton County jail, where he was being held on unrelated charges. He allegedly admitted to selling the drugs, which he knew contained fentanyl, to King.
On June 18, a warrant for Martinez on the murder charge was obtained by detectives. He is still being held at the Denton County jail on a $250,000 bond.
Martinez was previously arrested in 2022 for possession of a controlled substance of penalty group one. The penalty group includes substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.
This is the fifth fentanyl murder charge in Denton following the new Texas law that went into effect last year that “created a criminal offense of Murder for supplying fentanyl that results in death,” according to the press release.
In May, a 45-year-old woman in Denton was arrested for a fentanyl overdose that resulted in death, per a press release from the City of Denton. Upon further investigation, Denton police discovered that 45-year-old Ryan Michelle Warner sold narcotics to the victim. The victim was later identified as 38-year-old male Shaun Cross, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
The incident occurred on March 25, when officers responded to a report of an unconscious person inside an encampment in the 1900 block of Briner Road. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Cross’s cause of death as fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity.
On May 21, Denton police arrested Warner on a murder warrant in the 800 block of W. Hickory Street. Warner is being held at the Denton County jail, and her bond is set at $500,000, according to the jail records.
In Dallas, there have been 5,157 drug offenses logged so far this year as of June 20, according to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard.
With the Dallas City Council only budgeting the department $654 million this fiscal year, the Dallas Police Department is making do with far less taxpayer money than law enforcement agencies in other high-crime jurisdictions like Los Angeles and New York.
Meanwhile, DPD continues to be understaffed, fielding roughly 3,000 uniformed officers despite a City report previously calling for closer to 4,000.