A Tennessee family is warning the public against taking drugs after losing Tracy Marlar, 35, to a fentanyl overdose after she took laced oxycodone.
Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas, said Marlar was found dead inside a vehicle on March 5 and Randy Joe Coaker, 38, was arrested and charged with aggravated death by delivery, WREG reports.
Text messages viewed by investigators show Marlar allegedly paying Coaker for oxycodone, a severe painkiller commonly laced with fentanyl.
After her death, police said Coaker waited two hours before calling 911 and claimed he was not with her when she overdosed.
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However, a witness told cops that they were in the car with both Coaker and Marlar when she died, and viewed the suspect take green and blue “rock candy” from the victim’s purse before contacting police.
The suspected drug dealer is currently being held at Craighead County Jail on a $3 million bond.
A day before her daughter’s funeral, Rhonda Craig called for justice in an interview with the local Memphis station.
“I’m really hoping they will get the other people in the car with her because they didn’t do anything to save her,” she told WREG. “They didn’t even try to get here any help, they didn’t call for any help.”
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According to the grieving mother, Marlar began buying drugs after recently losing her job as a technologist at St. Jude Children’s Hospital. The overdose victim was also struggling with the losses of her grandmother and best friend at the time of her death.
“I’ve been telling people, please, if you know people who do pills, tell them to stop it because this fentanyl is out there, and it kills people,” Craig said.
She said her daughter and her alleged killer were friends, and that Marlar had even helped him settle into his new apartment.
Craig demanded the maximum sentence — life — for the man.
“I don’t care if she did pay him the money for the drug. I think he knew it was laced with something, laced with that, and he let her take it,” the grieving mother said.
Marlar’s cousin, Sarah Hinkson, told KAIT8 that her relative was trying to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a mother when she died.
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“She had already started the process with IVF. She was going to go in, I believe, the next two months to start the process,” Hinkson said.
Coaker’s “death by delivery” charge comes as part of a recent Arkansas law targeting fentanyl traffickers.
Act 584 took effect in August 2023, giving drug dealers penalties ranging from 20 years to life in prison for causing fatal overdoses with products laced with fentanyl.
Sonia Hagood, the prosecuting attorney for Arkansas’ 2nd Judicial District, told the local outlet that this is the first time the district has been able to hit someone with the new charge.
“Others, we’re still in the process of investigating. So, anticipate there will be a lot more of this particular charge in the future,” she said.
Jonesboro police said the investigation was still ongoing as of Thursday.
As the fentanyl crisis sweeps the nation, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) launched a “government-wide” probe into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ongoing attempt to “target, influence, and infiltrate every sector and community in the United States.”
The probe comes in the wake of Peter Schweizer’s latest book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. Just a week after the investigative piece’s release, it landed at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for it’s deep-dive onto the CCP’s involvement with fentanyl rings killing U.S. citizens.