Chattanooga investigators have arrested two people they say supplied opioids to a man who died of an overdose in March.
The body of 29-year-old Dustin Lowrance was found in a motel room at 2440 Williams St. on March 8. An autopsy determined Lowrance died from a toxic level of opioids.
Investigators determined Monica Dunn, 29, and Wilmer Sherrard, 32, supplied the drugs and were present when Lowrance overdosed, police said in a news release Friday.
Monica DunnDunn and Sherrard are charged with second-degree murder in the death. Both are in custody on multiple unrelated charges and have other arrest warrants pending in Dade and Walker counties in North Georgia, the news release states.
This is not the first time this year local authorities brought murder charges in an overdose death.
Sabrena Laquatra, 37, was charged with second-degree murder after a medical examiner's report indicated Tyler Hillian died from fentanyl toxicity. Prosecutors said evidence connected Laquatra to the drugs. It was the first such fentanyl-related overdose death case to be brought before a Hamilton County grand jury.
In an earlier case, authorities said Darius Blakemore, 27, provided Logan Whiteaker, 24, with a deadly heroin mixture. Whiteaker died within 18 hours of graduating from the Hamilton County Drug Court in February 2016.
Prosecutors claimed Blakemore sold $200 worth of heroin to a woman and had a runner deliver it to her in a McDonald's parking lot on Rossville Boulevard on Feb. 22, 2016. The woman passed the heroin to her passenger, Whiteaker. Red Bank police found him dead in his bathroom the next morning.
Times Free Press archives show Blakemore was arrested the following month with a gun, some cocaine and heroin during a traffic stop on Shallowford Road. He was indicted on nine counts, primarily for knowingly possessing heroin and cocaine with intent to sell, conspiring to distribute drugs throughout early 2016, and then selling a batch that resulted in Whiteaker's death.
Contact staff writer Emmett Gienapp at egienapp@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6731. Follow him on Twitter @emmettgienapp.