Norwalk man charged in overdose death that left toddler alone in house

MILFORD — A Norwalk man is due in court next month on charges he sold drugs used in the fatal overdose of a Mayflower Court man whose death left his 3-year-old son alone in the home.

Firefighters broke into the house and found the boy uninjured in his crib, according to an arrest warrant for 52-year-old Erley Pulgarin for illegal distribution of narcotics, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Pulgarin’s lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.

According to the warrant, police were dispatched to the house Sept. 5, 2021 on a welfare check on the 30-year-old man after his mother had been unable to reach him by phone or by banging on the door.

At the time, the man’s wife was in Florida at a bachelorette party.

The mother told police her son had a drug problem and had overdosed in the past but had been clean for two years.

After firefighters broke in, the man was found dead on a couch in the living room with his feet up on a coffee table. A medical examiner estimated the time of death sometime the previous evening.

His son was found in a crib in his bedroom and brought to his grandmother, according to the warrant.

In an office next to the living room, police found a paper plate with a rolled-up dollar bill and wax-like fold containing a white powder “consistent with the packaging of heroin bundles,” according to the warrant.

“It appeared that the child never climbed out of his crib and never came downstairs,” Detective Sgt. Jeffrey Cortes wrote in the warrant.

“The child had no visible injuries and it appeared he had been in his crib the entire time,” wrote Cortes, who also noted the presence of child safety gates at the stairs and door to the child’s room, as well as a side rail on the crib.

The warrant noted that the drugs “would have been within the child’s reach if he had come downstairs and entered the room.”

An autopsy a day after the victim’s body was found was inconclusive, but a month later the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause to be an accidental overdose of fentanyl, acetyl fentanyl, and heroin,” the warrant said.

Police searched the dead man’s cell phone, which the warrant said revealed text traffic with Pulgarin, a former roommate, arranging for him to deliver drugs to the Mayflower Court home earlier the day the man died.

When Cortes called Pulgarin, he allegedly said he was a former neighbor of the victim’s, but then told the detective to call his lawyer with any other questions.

In the texts, the man asked for “3-400,” but Pulgarin allegedly texted back “I’m going to get you 260 I think 300 or 400 too much for you I don’t want anything happen to you like shane.”

According to the warrant, Pulgarin’s Norwalk home was the site of a fatal 2016 overdose in which a man was found unresponsive in a bedroom with a needle lying next to him. His death was ruled an accidental overdose of heroin and cocaine.

Pulgarin was arrested Dec. 1 and released on a promise to appear. He is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 23.