Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Heroin death leads to arrest
Philadelphia man charged with drug delivery resulting in death
EAST GOSHEN » A month after local police charged a husband and wife from Philadelphia with dealing heroin, authorities have charged the husband with selling the drugs that led to a township’s woman’s overdose death, police said.
Joshua Caleb Jeffords, 33, of the 1100 block of Fillmore Street, was charged Wednesday with one count of drug delivery resulting in death, a felony of the first degree punishable by a maximum of 20 to 40 years in state prison. Jeffords turned himself in to authorities last week and is being held in Chester County Prison on $500,000 bail awaiting a preliminary hearing.
Westtown-East Goshen (WEGO) Detective Lt. William Cahill said in a press release that the Chester County Coroner’s Office had linked the death of an East Goshen woman to the injection of heroin laced with fentanyl, an opiate that is more than 100 times as powerful as morphine. Fentanyl has been blamed on the dramatic spike in overdose deaths in the southeastern Pennsylvania region, including Ches-
ter County.
The WEGO Regional Police Department was assisted in the case by the state Office of Attorney General-Bureau of Narcotics Investigations (BNI), the Chester County District Attorney’s Office, the county Coroner’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department.
“We are working with law enforcement agencies at every level to combat the threat of opioids and to arrest those who would poison our citizens for their own profit,” stated county District Attorney Chief of Staff Charles Gaza in the release. “This case is a great example of state, county, and local law enforcement agencies working together to follow the drug supply chain out of Chester County and back to its source in Philadelphia.”
According to the release, at 6:37 p.m. on July 9 WEGO police responded to a single-family home in East Goshen for a death investigation. Police located a 33-year-old woman dead in her bedroom. Within close proximity to the woman were two blue suspected heroin bags, both stamped “Little Miami” in black ink. One bag was open, the other was still sealed.
WEGO Detectives were subsequently able to identify the suspected drug dealer who had sold heroin to the woman, whose name was not released. They determined that the drug transaction occurred in the area of Fillmore Street in Philadelphia.
On July 10, WEGO detectives and BNI agents conducted a joint undercover investigation and set-up surveillance in the 1100 block of Fillmore Street, after making contact with the suspected drug dealer. Once the location to meet was agreed upon, the BNI agents observed a white male and white female exit a home in the block and walk to the area for the meet. When the pair arrived to this location both were taken into custody and identified. The female was found to be in possession of one blue bag stamped “Little Miami” in black ink.
The male was identified as Jeffords, age 33, and his wife was identified as Elizabeth Sarah Calderwood, also 33. Later in the evening police executed a search warrant for the home and recovered additional suspected heroin and heroin packaging.
On July 11, Jeffords was charged with one count of delivery of a controlled substance, one count of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, two counts of possession of a controlled substance, two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, one count of dealing in proceeds of illegal activity, two counts of criminal use of a communication facility and criminal conspiracy.
At the same time, Calderwood was charged with one count of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, one count of possession of a controlled substance, one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, one count of criminal use of a communication facility and criminal conspiracy.
Magisterial District Judge Nancy Gill of Parkesburg completed the preliminary arraignments for both defendants and bail was set for Jeffords at $50,000 dollars and $25,000 for Calderwood, unsecured. Jeffords was held until Aug. 7, when he posted bail.
Authorities received the autopsy and toxicology report from the coroner, which showed that the East Goshen woman died from a drug overdose and that the drug fentanyl was present.
Based on this new information, a new criminal complaint was filed charging Jeffords with the drug delivery count. Magisterial District Judge John Bailey of West Whiteland issued the felony arrest warrant for Jeffords.
A preliminary hearing for both defendants, on all charges, is scheduled for Sept. 6 before Magisterial District Judge Thomas Tartaglio of East Goshen.
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro commented, “If you sell drugs and someone dies as a result, you’re facing a drug delivery resulting in death charge and you’re going to jail for a long time.
“Strong law enforcement collaboration led to these charges being filed, and our Bureau of Narcotics Investigation assisted in the case. We thank the WesttownEast Goshen Regional Police Department and Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan for their great work,” Shapiro stated in the release.
At a June press conference about the heroin epidemic in the county, Hogan said 2016 had been a “catastrophe” for the southeastern Pennsylvania region when it came to overdoses linked to heroin and opioids. In Chester County, numbers rose from 60 overdose deaths in 2015 to 97 in 2016. He said the first four months of the year had seen 50 such deaths – a rate that would put the county on pace for 150 fatalities.
Hogan said many of those overdose deaths involved the presence of fentanyl, the “killer” additive to heroin that is used by many narcotic suppliers and craved by some addicts as a “super high” whose lethal properties are well-known in the drug community.