Atlantic City, NJ, Drug Dealer Sentenced for Fatal Overdose of Customer

An Atlantic City drug dealer has been sentenced to seven years in prison for causing the death of a woman who fatally overdosed on fentanyl-laced heroin he sold to her the day before she died.

Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia Bradshaw says 31-year-old Kahlil Carpenter pleaded guilty last month to first-degree strict liability for drug-induced death in exchange for the prison term.

Authorities say an investigation began on December 14, 2019, after Evesham Township police officers were called to Inverness Circle for a report of an unconscious and unresponsive female. There, they found the decedent, 37-year-old Holly Morris, in her bed.

An autopsy determined she died from fentanyl toxicity; she had levels in her system five times greater than the amount necessary to cause death.

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Law enforcement was able to determine that Morris had met Carpenter in Lumberton Township the day before to purchase the drugs.

Bradshaw said in a statement,

Fentanyl has destroyed so many families and devastated several of our communities. We must take extraordinary measures to offer protection against such harmful, and often deadly, effects.

Carpenter's sentence was handed down this past Friday in Superior Court in Mount Holly.