'We are coming for you:' 41 charged with trafficking fentanyl, 1 with murder for overdose (2024)

GREENVILLE — Just months after South Carolina made trafficking fentanyl a crime punishable by decades in prison, state officials have made their first mass application of the law by charging 41 people with dealing large quantities of the deadly opioid.

Officials have also taken the step of charging one man with murder for allegedly dealing the fentanyl that caused a fatal overdose — the first after the state's new trafficking fentanyl law.

A total of 64 people were charged after an extensive county, state and federal investigation into a growing number of overdose deaths across the Upstate, the state Attorney General's Office said at a Jan. 3 news conference in Greenville.

Sixty people were charged with fentanyl-related crimes, including possession, and four with methamphetamine-related crimes, among other charges, according to indictments shared by the office.

If convicted, several people charged face a minimum of 25 years, and up to 40, in prison for trafficking fentanyl.

Indictments show one man, Dean Morris Wolvington Jr., was charged with murderafter authorities said he sold fentanyl to a Pickens County woman who later overdosed and died. Three others were charged with accessory to murder and are accused of selling fentanyl to people who died from an overdose.

Creighton Waters,chief prosecutorof the state's grand jury, said they are confident their legal theory behind charging Wolvington with murder is sound, but acknowledged it is an aggressive strategy.

"I've always said that you don't hit home runs if you're afraid to strike out, and we're swinging for the fences with this," Waters said.

Waters, the renowned prosecutor who led the state's murder trial against Alex Murdaugh, called for specific legislation to address dealers involved with overdose deaths.

Wolvington is one of only a few nationwide to be charged with murder for allegedly causing a fatal overdose. He is the second alleged opioid dealer in South Carolina to be charged by the state's grand jury with murder, Waters said.

The first, Shiv Taylor, was indicted for selling a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl to a 19-year-old, who overdosed and died. Taylor pleaded guilty to charges that did not include murder, according to the AG's office.

In July, a California manpleaded guiltyto second-degree murder for providing fentanyl to a 15-year-old girl, who later died from consuming it.

"I have a message for those who seek to profit from this poison," S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson said. "We are coming for you, and we're going to use every weapon at our disposal."

Fentanyl overdoses continue to surge nationally and across South Carolina, eclipsing other opioids and drugs in recent years.

Wilson said undercover purchases and seizures during the investigation recovered over 1 kilogram of fentanyl and 1.5 kilograms of methamphetamine, which have an estimated combined street value of over $36,000.

Investigators found that more than 500 kilograms of fentanyl had been moved since January 2020, according to a state Attorney General's Office news release.

Just 2 milligrams of fentanylcan be a lethal dose, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Wilson said that while it is "everywhere" in South Carolina, a lot of fentanyl has been seen in the Upstate.

In August, Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis announced a program to identify people who have had an opioid overdose and provide them with resources, including access to rehabilitation programs.

The program began tracking overdoses and providing support in the county in January 2023, Lewis said at the time.

In 2022,Greenville County alone had 278 overdoses deaths. In 2023, the number had dropped to 166 deaths, 137 of which were fentanyl-related, according to the Greenville County Coroner's Office.

Fentanyl finds its way to South Carolina through Mexican cartels on the southern border, China and other South American countries, Russ Linstad with the Department of Homeland Security saidat the news conference.

"Mexican drug cartels and other criminals are trafficking this poison into us, and it is coming to communities like this," Wilson said. "It is feeding into violent crimes, and it is destroying lives."