A drug dealer in Gwinnett County will be charged with felony murder after he sold drugs laced with fentanyl, killing the recipient.
Yesterday, Eric Denver Moore of Lawrenceville pleaded guilty to the 2019 drug-related death. This is the first time, at least in Gwinnett County, that a felony murder charge will be applied to death as a result of drugs.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Moore sold drugs to Barth Alan Moser. 50-year-old Moser, a dad from Grayson, thought he was purchasing heroin, but it was laced with fentanyl, an opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
Moore entered his guilty plea on the first day of his trial. He had already pleaded guilty to transporting heroin, possession of methamphetamine, and possession of drug-related objects prior to trial.
Moore may be the first to be charged with such a crime, but this paves the way for others to face harsher charges, as well. There are currently seven other defendants in the county facing felony murder charges related to selling heroin or other substances that contained fentanyl.
The number of fentanyl-related deaths has been increasing steadily. Fentanyl played a role in 60% of all drug-related deaths in the county in 2020, according to medical examiner’s office records obtained by the AJC. Seventy people died from fentanyl-related overdoses in 2020, compared to 26 in 2019.
Several street drugs — cocaine, heroin, meth, and even marijuana — can be laced with fentanyl. Counterfeit pills peddled by drug dealers that look like Xanax or Percocet can also contain fatal amounts of the synthetic opioid.
