Alleged dealer, 25, arraigned in fatal OD
A Westfield man arraigned yesterday on manslaughter charges for allegedly supplying a lethal mix of heroin and the vastly more powerful drug fentanyl to a 21-year-old man never warned him that what he was buying was “fire,” state police said.
The night before Grady Kendrick Hughes’ fatal overdose in April, Derek W. Webb arranged to buy heroin that was stamped “blue magic” from a higher-level dealer, who warned him that the drugs were “fire,” which meant they were strong and therefore particularly dangerous,” Trooper Noah H. Pack said in his report.
“After obtaining that heroin, Derek Webb coordinated a drug deal via text messages with Hughes for one bundle of heroin, which included no warning that this heroin was particularly strong or dangerous,” Pack wrote.
The State Police Crime Laboratory, which later analyzed the contents of partial bags of drugs found at Hughes’ home, determined that they tested positive for both heroin and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine, but is 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Within 77 minutes of receiving those drugs, Hughes was found dead, Pack said. The cause of death was acute heroin and fentanyl intoxication, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Webb, 25, was arraigned in Westfield District Court yesterday on charges of manslaughter and distribution of heroin and held on $500,000 cash bail, pending a July 19 hearing.
Hughes, a 21-year-old carpenter, was found dead at about 2 a.m. on April 7 at his Loomis Street home in Westfield. When officers arrived, they found him with a needle sticking out of his arm as his 16-year-old sister attempted CPR, Pack said. On the coffee table next to him, there were about 20 torn, partial bags of suspected heroin, each with the words “blue magic” in blue ink, he said.
Police and other first responders also did CPR and gave Hughes Narcan, a nasal spray that can sometimes reverse an overdose, but he was pronounced dead at Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield.
On the cellphone he shared with his mother, the last text message thread appeared to show him arranging for drugs to be delivered to his house for $50 in the hours before his death, Pack said.
Detectives looked up the number of the dealer on Facebook and found that it was linked to the profile of a woman who had been arrested with Webb on a warrant on March 17, the trooper said. Both the woman and Webb were known heroin users and dealers, who sometimes lived with a deaf man and used vehicles registered to him, Pack said.
Webb later admitted to coordinating the sale of heroin to Hughes on the night of his death, Pack said.