An Ector County grand jury has indicted an Odessa man on a murder charge using a new state law that went into effect just one month prior to the death.
Nathaniel Martinez, 18, is charged with murder manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance causing death. He’s accused of delivering the fentanyl that Damien Aguilar, 16, fatally overdosed on Oct. 2.
According to Odessa Police reports, Martinez admitted to authorities that at the time of Aguilar’s death he was selling 200-300 fentanyl pills daily.
Dispatchers received a 911 call around 7:20 a.m. Oct. 2 about a possible overdose in the 1200 block of Lindberg and when officers and paramedics arrived they found Aguilar unresponsive.
Aguilar was taken to Medical Center Hospital for treatment and a witness told officers they found the teenager sitting on the floor in his bedroom and when they asked him if he was OK, he said, “No,” the report stated.
The witness tried to help the teen off the floor, but he lost consciousness, the report stated. The witness, who said Aguilar had overdosed on fentanyl in the past, administered Narcan and began giving him CPR.
The witness told police they suspected Aguilar had overdosed on fentanyl-laced oxycodone or M30 pills because they’d seen him take them in the past, the report stated.
Officers found eight such pills in Aguilar’s room, the report stated.
The teenager was flown to a Lubbock hospital where he was declared brain dead, the report stated. He died the next day.
An autopsy revealed a forensic pathologist suspected Aguilar died of a fentanyl overdose.
Detectives discovered Martinez had supplied Aguilar with the fentanyl by searching Aguilar’s phone, Instagram and Snapchat messages and using geolocation tracking data, the report stated.
Officers later responded to an apartment on Andrews Highway and learned Martinez needed to be taken to Medical Center Hospital. At the same time, officers found him to be in possession of 21 grams of M30 pills.
After he was discharged from the hospital, Martinez admitted he has been selling 200-300 M30 pills every day and he’d sold pills to Aguilar, the report stated.
He also admitted he’d seen five or six people suffer non-fatal overdoses and knew people can die from overdosing on fentanyl, the report stated.
Martinez bonded out of the Ector County jail after posting $125,000 in surety bonds.
