High school student death among a string of recent tragedies across North Texas linked to fentanyl

The fight to contain the crisis of fentanyl and fentanyl-related overdose deaths continues in North Texas.

NBC 5 has learned new details in the death of a Wylie high school student as local law enforcement expands its effort to track down those who supply the deadly drug.

A recently unsealed 16-page criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas lays out the tragic choices federal authorities say led up to the death of Chance Stovall, 17, in January.

Robbie Stovall declined an interview with NBC 5 on Thursday but said he simply wants to raise awareness of the lethal drug.

In a previous interview, Stovall said he did not know how his son got ahold of a pill containing fentanyl but believed he may have simply been experimenting.

According to the criminal complaint, Connor Miller, 17 of Richardson, allegedly confessed to local and federal authorities that he and his friend Chance Stovall had repeatedly sought out a drug dealer in Dallas specifically for fentanyl pills.

The two met at work and began using M30 fentanyl tablets shortly after they met, according to the court record.

Miller allegedly told investigators Stovall ‘knew that they were purchasing fentanyl,’ and added that he told Stovall ‘fentanyl was dangerous.’

The two reportedly met up with their drug dealer along Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas in late January and purchased four fentanyl tablets for $40.

"[Miller] stated that he crushed up and snorted two fentanyl" while Stovall snorted two crushed tablets over "approximately a 30-45 minute period."

Miller said he nodded off and woke up to find Stovall unconscious on the floor, surrounded by vomit.

Stovall’s lips were blue, and Miller believed he had overdosed, according to the criminal complaint.

The teen's tragic death is one of many cases reported recently across Dallas – Fort Worth involving the highly addictive and deadly synthetic opioid sold ‘up front as fentanyl’ or disguised as other drugs including Percocet and Adderall.

Eduardo Chaves, special agent in charge of the DEA Dallas Field Division, says fentanyl is the most dangerous illicit drug in his lifetime.

“Pills and tablets are very disarming to our society,” he explains. “We’ve grown up with medications.”

That notion of it being "just a pill," he believes, has led to the explosion of fentanyl use and deaths.

“Criminal organizations have tried to mimic these drugs to look like legitimate pharmaceutical drugs, however now more and more we’re seeing those who are suffering from substance abuse disorders asking for fentanyl pills,” said Chavez.

During Stovall’s death investigation, detectives found a note in Miller’s bedroom indicating Miller’s ongoing struggle with addiction and his stay(s) in rehab. The note read in part: "If anything happens to me, I love you… Thank y’all for all the chances. I’m sorry I did this, It was not on purpose."

In recent years, law enforcement and school districts have stressed the dangers of buying or accepting tablets not prescribed by a doctor by emphasizing: ‘One Pill Can Kill.’

“You can’t just take half of what a fentanyl pill is because there are no quality controls,” said Chavez.

The DEA says Mexican drug cartels manufacture and smuggle fentanyl powder and pills into the U.S., using chemicals sent from China.

These criminal entities aim to create fentanyl addicts and consider any fentanyl-related death in the U.S. as simply ‘the price of doing business.’

“[Fentanyl] doesn’t bring the same level of risk or threat as a glass pipe full of methamphetamine,” said Chavez. “It looks like a pill. It looks like something we’re very used to seeing.”

Stovall’s death is one of several cases across North Texas in recent months.

While Miller faces federal charges for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and using his cell phone to facilitate a drug felony, suspected fentanyl suppliers in other fatal fentanyl-related cases face murder charges.

The 88th Texas Legislative Session amended state law allowing an individual who "knowingly manufactures or delivers fentanyl" and it results in the death of another person, as a result of injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or introducing into the individual’s body to be charged with murder.

Last week, police in Grapevine announced the arrest of Kami Ludwig, 35, in the November fentanyl overdose death of her boyfriend Shane Nolen, 47.

Ludwig faces charges of murder and possession of a controlled substance, according to GPD.

Parker County revealed the arrest of Chukwubogu Okwedi, 33, of Frisco in the death of a 36-year-old man in late January.

Okwedi faces murder and manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance for selling narcotics containing fentanyl which resulted in the death of the man, according to the sheriff’s office.

During a Tuesday morning press conference on the fight against drug cartels smuggling drugs like fentanyl across the Mexican border, Collin County Sheriff Jim Skinner received word of a new arrest.

Skinner announced the arrest of Gregory Noah Honesty in the fentanyl-poisoning death of a 25-year-old woman from Blue Ridge.

Honesty, the sheriff’s office says, sold the woman M30 pills which led to her death.

The sheriff said the suspect would face a murder charge, thanks to the new state law, and is warning other suppliers.

“If we identify the individual that’s slingin’ that fentanyl that results in the death of any individual here in Collin County, we’re going to pursue you and charge you with murder,” Skinner said.