Man indicted on murder charge in woman's overdose
DEBARY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - An accused drug dealer is off the streets in Volusia County, after deputies said he was connected to the death of a woman who overdosed.
Sheriff Mike Chitwood on Wednesday announced the arrest of Hunter Romaine, 24, who is charged with first-degree murder. Chitwood said Romaine sold heroin and cocaine laced with fentanyl to Ashley Barrett, 33, who died in February.
Barrett died in Romaine's DeBary home after he supplied her with cocaine and what he thought was heroin, investigators said. Text message records detailed how Barrett arranged for Romaine to pick her up and bring her back to his house to use the drugs, they said.
Toxicology results indicated Barrett had fentanyl, acetyl-fentanyl and cocaine in her system when she died.
"The penalty for having an addiction is not death," Sheriff Mike Chitwood said after announcing the indictment Wednesday afternoon. "The dealers out there who are peddling poison to addicts need to be looking over their shoulder, because we are going to do everything we can to take them off the streets and into a cage."
The investigation also led the arrests of two accused heroin dealers, father and son, Salvatore "Sal" DeSantis III, 49, and Salvatore "Daniel" DeSantis IV, 21.