A 33-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to controlled substance homicide in Lewis County Superior Court following her arrest earlier this month after the overdose death of a 57-year-old Lewis County man, according to a news release from the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET).
Nichole L. Thompson was sentenced to 51 months in prison followed by a year of supervision by the Department of Corrections, according to JNET.
Thompson was arrested May 10 after she allegedly admitted to detectives with JNET that she supplied fentanyl to the 57-year-old Lewis County man who died of an overdose last December, according to a previous news release from JNET.
On Dec. 6, 2022, at approximately 8:10 p.m., deputies with the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) responded to the 2300 block of Wildwood Road in Curtis where they located the 57-year-old man who had died from an apparent overdose of fentanyl. In the following weeks, the Lewis County Coroner’s Office reported fentanyl as one of the primary contributors to the man’s death.
In January 2023, JNET contacted the LCSO to work collaboratively on this death investigation.
The Centralia Police Department General Detective’s Division was investigating crimes unrelated to death in Curtis. On Tuesday, March 9, detectives from the Centralia Police Department, along with members of the Washington State Department of Corrections and JNET, went to the 17000 block of Furman Road Southwest in Rochester where they arrested 37-year-old Brandon Weber for an outstanding Department of Corrections warrant as well as the second-degree burglary, second-degree theft, possession of a stolen vehicle and escape from community custody. The charges stemmed from Weber burglarizing a store in Centralia, according to JNET.
When Weber was arrested, Thompson was present. JNET detectives recognized her as a person who “has ties to the local illegal drug community” and who was at the residence in Curtis when the overdose death occurred in December 2022.
Detectives interviewed Thompson and she admitted to supplying fentanyl to the man who died of an overdose in Curtis on Dec. 6, according to JNET. She was arrested and booked into the jail.
“The successful investigation leading to the arrest of Thompson by JNET was aided by Centralia Police Department detectives and Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detectives,” JNET stated in the release.
JNET is made up of task force officers and detectives from the Centralia Police Department, the Chehalis Police Department, Washington Department of Corrections and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Local resources for substance abuse disorders and recovery can be found through the Recovery Navigator Program at https://www.grbhaso.org/rnp or by calling the crisis line at 1-800-803-8833.
Information about the dangers of fentanyl can be found at https://www.dea.gov/factsheets/fentanyl.
