Man arrested in Texas for Bremerton drug death

A 25-year-old North Kitsap man was arrested in Texas on Thursday for providing the drugs that killed a man in Bremerton earlier this year.

Prosecutors charged Dayton Kegley Griffin, 25, with a count of controlled substances homicide in Kitsap County Superior Court on Tuesday and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

A social media post from the Bosque County Sheriff ’s Office in Texas reported that Griffin had been apprehended by deputies and Texas Rangers on Thursday. The post said he was taken into custody without incident and was awaiting extradition back to Washington.

Bremerton police were originally notified about an apparent unconscious male, later identified as Josua Davis Kinney, on April 6, according to court documents, which note that Kinney was found dead by his brother at a residence on Seringa Avenue, off Lower Wheaton Way. An obituary for Kinney said he was 25 when he died.

At the scene, Griffin told officers that he and Kinney had consumed “ODSMT,” later identified as O-desmethyltramadol, an opioid, and other controlled substances, and Griffin reported that he had ordered the narcotics online and had them mailed to him, a U.S. Postal Service inspector wrote in a report, noting, “the manner in which Griffin described acquiring the illicit narcotics is a common illicit narcotics distribution trend utilizing online vendors and the United States Postal Service.”

Griffin noted that he did not have a prescription for the drugs he ordered. He further told police that he provided the drugs to Kinney upon his request and told police that Kinney did not usually use narcotics.

“Every pill is mine,” Griffin said, according to court documents, which note that he added, “I know that we were making bad choices. Why couldn’t it have been me?”

Police seized carisoprodol – a muscle relaxant and Schedule 4 narcotic – and tapentadol – an opioid and Schedule 2 narcotic – at the scene, the inspector wrote.

Kitsap County Medical Examiner Dr. Lindsay Harle later found that Kinney died as a result of an “acute mixed drug toxicity (bromazolam, O-desmethyltramadol, tapentadol, carisoprodol and diphenhydramine),” the inspector wrote. Kinney’s manner of death was ruled to be an accident.