Man guilty of second-degree murder in fentanyl death of 20-year-old El Dorado County woman
A man on Friday pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for selling fentanyl to a 20-year-old woman who ingested the synthetic opioid and died three years ago in El Dorado County.
Kamaal Babatunde Yusuf, 24, pleaded guilty to the murder charge for the fentanyl-related death Gillian Murray of Shingle Springs, the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday afternoon in a news release.
El Dorado Superior Court records shows that a judge had scheduled a hearing Friday morning to determine when Yusuf’s murder trial would begin.
Instead, Yusuf was convicted and is expected to be sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Prosecutors said it’s the maximum sentence allowed under California law for a second-degree murder conviction.
“This conviction establishes clear accountability for fentanyl dealers whose actions result in death,” District Attorney Vern Pierson said in the news release. “The defendant was fully aware of the lethal nature of the substances he distributed and continued his activities with reckless disregard for human life.”
On May 6, 2022, Yusuf sold counterfeit blue M30 Oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl to Murray and her boyfriend in a Taco Bell parking lot in Folsom, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Murray and her boyfriend went home and consumed one pill each. Prosecutors said Murray’s boyfriend woke up and found her unresponsive, not breathing and called 911. Medics arrived, and she was pronounced dead. Toxicology results revealed she died from acute fentanyl poisoning.
El Dorado County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Roberts and other members of the Western El Dorado Narcotics Enforcement Team investigated Murray’s death. Prosecutors said they learned Yusuf sold fentanyl on his Snapchat account under the alias “Mr. Sneeze,” and Snapchat messages obtained by forensic teams confirmed Yusuf’s awareness of the drug’s potency.
He instructed buyers to “start with a half” to avoid an overdose, and Yusuf had overdosed on fentanyl once before Murray’s death, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Investigators served a search warrant at Yusuf’s home and found thousands of counterfeit fentanyl-laced M30 pills, prosecutors said, and their surveillance captured hand-to-hand narcotics sales linked to Yusuf.
Authorities arrested Yusuf on suspicion of murder in the fentanyl death and booked him Jan. 23, 2023, into the El Dorado County Jail.
While in custody, Yusuf was recorded in jailhouse calls instructing his brother and an associate to erase data from his phone to obstruct the investigation, prosecutors said.
Fentanyl is a powerful and potentially addictive drug that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin. Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drug dealers mix fentanyl, because of its potency and low cost, with other drugs including heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, which increases the likelihood of a fatal dose, according to the DEA. It’s possible for someone to take a pill without knowing it contains fentanyl or whether it contains a lethal dose of fentanyl.
High-profile criminal cases have involved evidence showing young people using their social media accounts, such as Snapchat, to sell or find fentanyl to buy. Fentanyl can be sold as pills, with some online dealers claiming the pills are Xanax, Percocet and oxycodone. Fentanyl also can come in powder and vape pens.
In September 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Yusuf, accusing him of distributing fentanyl across the Sacramento region.
Yusuf faces charges of conspiracy to distribute and possession with an intent to distribute 400 grams of fentanyl powder, being a felon in possession of a firearm and having an unregistered short-barrel rifle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento. The federal case is still pending in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Yusuf was described by federal prosecutors as a West Sacramento resident and by El Dorado County sheriff’s officials as an Elk Grove resident.
On Friday afternoon, Yusuf remained in custody at the jail. He is scheduled to return to court May 23 for his sentencing hearing.
