A Dallas man is the latest to be charged with murder as a result of a person’s fentanyl-related death.
Gregory Noah Honesty, 25, was arrested in Dallas on February 13 by Collin County deputies and U.S. Marshals. He is currently in Collin County Detention Facility in lieu of a $100,000 bond.
Honesty is accused of selling fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills disguised as Percocet to a 25-year-old woman in Blue Ridge, according to a news release from the Collin County Sheriff’s Office. She died of fentanyl toxicity on November 19.
Thanks to a new law passed in Texas last year, murder charges can be pursued against anyone believed to have provided or manufactured fentanyl that led to an overdose death, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
“From Collin County’s standpoint, in every fentanyl-related death, we are going to investigate it as a homicide,” said Collin County Sheriff Jim Skinner, according to Fox 4 KDFW. “We are going to pursue you and charge you with murder.”
Honesty allegedly communicated with the female victim via Instagram and sold her 12 counterfeit pills on November 18.
Fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid, is estimated to cause around five deaths each day in Texas alone. However, individuals who end up consuming the drug don’t always know they are taking fentanyl due to illicit drug manufacturers disguising laced pills as other popularly abused drugs, such as oxycodone or Xanax. In 2022, the Drug Enforcement Agency found that roughly 6 out of 10 fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills it tested contained a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
The fight against the fentanyl crisis has led to authorities using the new state law to slap murder charges on alleged dealers across North Texas in recent months.
For instance, Kami Ludwig, 35, was recently charged with murder in connection with the overdose death of her boyfriend, William Shane Nolen, 47, in November 2023, as previously covered by The Dallas Express. She is accused of providing him with M-30 fentanyl-laced pills, Xanax, oxycodone, and cocaine.
In Dallas, there has already been a 5.1% bump in drug crime reported as of February 18 compared to the year prior, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard.
Monthly studies by the Metroplex Civic & Business Association comparing crime in Downtown Dallas and Fort Worth’s city center show that the former logs consistently higher figures than the latter. While Fort Worth patrols its downtown area with a dedicated police unit and private security officers, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) has been laboring under a significant officer shortage, which has delayed police response times.
Although a City report called for a force of 4,000 to patrol a municipality the size of Dallas, DPD fields just 3,000 officers. Meanwhile, City officials recently voted in a $654 million budget for DPD, allocating significantly fewer taxpayer dollars to police than other high-crime jurisdictions, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.