Drug dealer who sold laced heroin that killed Marine veteran charged with murder
An Orange City, California man is facing a murder charge after deputies say he sold a batch of fentanyl-laced heroin that killed a Seminole County man more than a year ago
An Orange City, California man is facing a murder charge after deputies say he sold a batch of fentanyl-laced heroin that killed a Seminole County man more than a year ago.
Austin Smiley, 40, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of murder by controlled substance. He's being held in the Seminole County Jail.
On Jan. 13, 2018, deputies responded to an apartment on Summit Ridge Place, near Longwood, where one of Jon Wiggins' friends said he woke up to find Wiggins unconscious and another friend dragging him to the shower to revive him.
Wiggins, a 41-year-old veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, was pronounced dead.
The friend told investigators Wiggins had snorted several lines of heroin the previous night, prompting the friend to tell him to stop because he was taking too much. Authorities searched Wiggins' phone and found a text message from a man named “Austin” asking, “How'd you like that dog food?” according to court documents.
The text came at 3:56 a.m. — 14 minutes before Wiggins' friend called 911.
After using “several investigative databases,” authorities say they tied Smiley to the text message and determined he lived in an Altamonte Springs home that had been known as a drug house.
Deputies said they pulled over a car carrying Smiley later that day and he admitted selling Wiggins $45 worth of heroin. He also said the reference to “dog food” in the text message meant heroin.
Authorities waited for the results of Wiggins' autopsy — which showed he died of a fentanyl overdose — before arresting Smiley on a murder charge.
He was arrested in Volusia County before being booked in the Seminole County Jail. He's being held without bond.
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