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March 9, 2007

Teen charged in student’s death released

By Debbie Wachter Morris

A youth arrested for allegedly selling oxycodone that contributed to a student’s apparent overdose death has been released from custody.

District Attorney John Bongivengo said the 16-year-old New Castle High School student was freed yesterday from the Krause Youth Shelter following a juvenile hearing. He had been held 72 hours on a charge of possession with intent to deliver following his arrest Saturday by New Castle police.

The teen is accused of having provided the prescription narcotics to 16-year-old Erica Million, which police believe led to her death. Million was found unconscious Feb. 27 during a math class.

She was rushed to Jameson Hospital, then transferred to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, where she died Sunday.

Police searched a Wallace Avenue home the evening of Feb. 27, after learning from other students that the boy allegedly had sold the oxycodone tablets to Million, and that she apparently snorted an unknown number of them in school.

Police seized several bottles of prescription narcotics in the search.

New paperwork filed Tuesday in the court of District Judge James Reed showed police had recovered multiple prescriptions. They include five bottles of pills marked oxycodone in varying strengths from 15 to 30 milligrams and containing a total of 342 pills.

They also seized a bottle labeled cyclobenzaprine, containing 60 tablets, and a bottle labeled Flexeril, containing 56 pills.

Flexeril is a brand-name muscle relaxer and cyclobenzaprine is the drug’s generic name.

Although Bongivengo acknowledged “that’s a lot of pills,” he said they belong to the boy’s stepfather and were by legitimate prescriptions.

He said he did not know the name of the doctor who prescribed them, nor did New Castle Police Chief Tom Sansone.

The chief said some of the pill bottles were a couple of years old.

The search was conducted by two city narcotics officers and a detective, according to the court papers.

The youth who allegedly sold Million the pills was released because his parents and other family members assured the juvenile court he would not flee from justice, Bongivengo said. He added the drug charge is still pending against him.

Neither New Castle school officials, Sansone nor the investigating detective objected at the juvenile hearing to the youth’s release, according to Bongivengo.

He said he expects to charge the teen as an adult with delivery of a narcotic leading to death, a third-degree murder charge, pending results of a toxicology test taken during Million’s autopsy Sunday in Allegheny County.

“We’re still waiting for the toxicology reports,” Bongivengo said yesterday, adding he expects to see results in about two weeks.

He said no charges are pending against anyone else.

Meanwhile George Gabriel, New Castle’s superintendent, said he will recommend to the school board that the student be expelled.

The district has enough evidence through eyewitnesses that the youth was involved in a drug transaction and that he sold drugs, Gabriel said, and the school code directs the superintendent to take the matter before the board of directors for consideration of expulsion.

Gabriel noted that any school disciplinary action taken will be separate from the criminal charge pending against the youth.

He emphasized the New Castle school district has a zero-tolerance policy about drugs in school and that such activity will not be tolerated.

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