Trial date set for man who allegedly administered lethal dose of fentanyl to girl

It was confirmed today that a trial will take place on October 29th for a young man accused along with a cohort of distributing a lethal dose of fentanyl to a 16-year-old French Valley girl.

Jeremiah David Carlton, 21, of Canyon Lake is charged in the death of the teen, identified in court documents only as “JG.”

Carlton is charged with second-degree murder, transportation of narcotics for sale and possession of narcotics for sale.

During a preliminary hearing Tuesday at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta, Riverside County District Court Judge John Monterosso consulted with the prosecution and defense on a specific date for the next phase of the proceedings. Both sides indicated they are ready to proceed by the end of next month.

Carlton is being held in the Byrd Detention Center pending a $1 million bail.

His co-defendant, 21-year-old Raymond Gene Tyrrell of French Valley, who was charged separately, pleaded guilty in July to manslaughter and was sentenced to three years in prison. However, because of the amount of time he had already spent in prison awaiting the disposition of the case, along with
Among other penalties, Judge Stephen Gallon commuted his prison sentence to what is known as a “paper release”, allowing Tyrrell to go on immediate probation.

Sgt. Rick Espinoza of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department alleged that Carlton and Tyrrell supplied the drugs that led to JG’s death on the night of February 24, 2021, at a residence in the 35000 block of Sugar Maple Street, just off Leon Road.

Espinoza said officers were called to the scene to investigate two possible fentanyl poisonings and found the girl and a man, whose identities have not been released, in comas. Both were taken to a regional trauma center, where the man was resuscitated, but the girl succumbed to the toxic ingestion.

“Detectives have conducted an investigation and gathered information indicating that it may have been a homicide,” said the sergeant, who declined to elaborate on the circumstances.

Tyrrell was called to the Southwest Sheriff’s Office in Murrieta a day later and questioned by detectives before being arrested. Carlton was served with a warrant and arrested at his residence.

Neither suspect had any evidence of prior criminal convictions.

Since February 2021, the Public Prosecution Service has charged more than 30 people across the region in connection with fentanyl poisoning.

In November, prosecutors closed the books on the county’s first fentanyl murder case to go before a jury, resulting in the conviction of 34-year-old Vicente David Romero, who was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the 2020 death of a Temecula woman. District Attorney Mike Hestrin said it was the first fentanyl murder conviction in the state.

According to public health statistics, there were 550 known fentanyl-related deaths across the province in 2023. That’s a 9% increase from 2022, when there were 503.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is produced in foreign laboratories, primarily in China. The synthetic opioid is smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by drug cartels.

Fentanyl is 80-100 times more potent than morphine and can be mixed with a wide range of street narcotics and prescription drugs without a user knowing what they are consuming. Ingestion of as little as two milligrams can be fatal.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.