A 20-year-old Henderson man will spend roughly 20 years in prison for his role in two overdose deaths occurring less than six months apart.
Both deaths occurred in Henderson.
Elijah Lovell was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Owensboro to 23 years on two federal charges of distributing fentanyl resulting in death. Lovell must serve 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for supervised release, officials said.
According to Travis Goins, a narcotics investigator for the Henderson Police Department, patrol units responded to Mill Street on the morning of Jan. 31, 2022, after receiving a 911 call regarding a possible overdose.
“The deceased 25-year-old man lived with relatives who told us that in the past he’d battled an opiate addiction,” Goins said. “They told us they were unaware that he’d started using again.”
The detective said officers didn’t find any narcotics at the scene.
However, an autopsy revealed that the cause of death was fentanyl intoxication.
“There are so many illegal substances they are putting fentanyl in,” Goins said. “The most common are fake Percocets. Ninety-nine percent of overdoses are from fentanyl pills.
“Once we received that information and the toxicology came back as fentanyl, we presumed it to be pills,” he said. “Through interviews and phone and social media records, we were able to determine that he’d purchased pills laced with fentanyl. Those records pointed to Elijah (as the seller). Once I obtained certain information, I contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
As Goins was investigating the death of the 25-year-old, deputies with the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office were called to a scene much like the one on Mill Street.
This time, the death involved a 16-year-old from Evansville.
HCSO Detective Matt Brooks said it was around 4:30 a.m. on May 7, 2022, when deputies responded to a residence on Rucker Road No. 1 where the body of the teen had been found.
“He had gone to visit friends,” Brooks said. “The deputies found blue pills that looked like the fake Percocet/fentanyl pills going around. The medical examiner found fentanyl in his system, and that was his cause of death.
“So, we have a person who is dead, and it’s because of fentanyl. This is something illegal that you had to get from someone else. We wanted to know who he obtained it from. In mine and Travis’ case it was the same guy,” Brooks said.
Again, technology gave sheriff’s investigators a starting point, and Brooks was able to obtain camera footage of the illegal transaction.
“We found that he’d purchased the pills at Ellis Park from Elijah on May 5,” he said. “I knew we’d get something from the cameras, and we got his face right there.”
“I didn’t know Travis had his case. Then we ran into each other and talked about it. We realized we both had the same suspect in two death cases. The cases were presented to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and subsequently, they were combined.”
Four months after the second overdose, Lovell was again an alleged suspect, but this time in a drug trafficking arrest.
On Sept. 9, 2022, HPD Detective Jake Isonhood arrested Lovell at a local motel for aggravated trafficking in fentanyl after he was allegedly found with 28 grams of fentanyl pills, Goins said.
During booking at the Henderson County Detention Center, Lovell allegedly failed to disclose that he had fentanyl pills on his person.
“They were found during a search,” Goins said. “He was charged with first-degree promoting contraband.”
Both of the state cases have yet to be adjudicated.
Goins and Brooks said that every overdose death is investigated, but there tends to be more overdoses related to fentanyl than other drugs.
“Elijah sold the pills knowing they were fentanyl,” Goins said. “He wasn’t selling them deceived that fentanyl was in them.
“Most people buying fentanyl, wanted fentanyl. And that’s what Elijah sold them,” he said. “There is some property to it that is more addictive. People who start using fentanyl want to use fentanyl. When it hit the streets and became a hot topic, people didn’t realize how dangerous it was.”
Goins said more has been learned about how fentanyl kills, and it’s particularly dangerous when it’s airborne. People can have it on their skin, and it won’t kill them, unless it’s mixed with an alcohol-based product like hand sanitizer. “Then it absorbs into the skin and can cause a person to overdose,” he said.
Goins said methamphetamine is still more popular than fentanyl, but fentanyl has caused more deaths.
“We were getting (a lot) of cases (involving fentanyl), but thankfully, it’s slowed down,” he said.
While the Lovell case was adjudicated federally, the Kentucky State Legislature recently took a stance on fentanyl dealers whose product causes the death of a person.
Called the Safer Kentucky Act, the new law—which takes effect July 15—enhances penalties for several crimes including “fentanyl delivery causing an overdose death.”
The law stipulates that a person who “knowingly” sells fentanyl or a fentanyl derivative can be charged with first-degree manslaughter if the drug leads to a person’s death. A person who distributes fentanyl or a derivative of fentanyl—even unknowingly—can now be charged with second-degree manslaughter if the drug leads to a person’s death.
The Safer Kentucky Act also amends the “Good Samaritan” statute giving “criminal immunity from a manslaughter charge for someone who is trying to seek help in an overdose situation.”
There is also an increase in the penalty for those smuggling substances like fentanyl and its derivatives into a detention center. The charge is now a Class C felony.