SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Three men have been indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder in connection with the death of a Seminole County man in January because of fentanyl.
Tristan Buttrum, 27, was found dead with a pressed fentanyl pill nearby.
Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said they were able to track down the person who sold Buttrum the fentanyl, who became an informant and helped detectives track down three people involved in trafficking the fentanyl — Bradley Hunter of Kissimmee, Vincete Diaz of St. Cloud, and Andres Raya of Los Angeles, who Lemma said was two levels removed from a Mexican drug cartel.
Lemma said Raya had 40,000 pills shipped to Central Florida, and one of those pills was responsible for Buttrum’s death.
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
A grand jury in October heard the case and returned indictments for first-degree murder, as allowed under Florida law.
Lemma and Buttrum’s mother said Buttrum had been on Percocet after he was stabbed five years ago, which he could no longer get safely and led to him getting pills illegally.
“Tristan was legally prescribed pain pills by a doctor for legitimate medical conditions several years ago, had built up this dependency and no fault of his own. This is biologically what happens when somebody is prescribed the drugs, they can no longer get the drugs, nothing replaces that,” Lemma said.
Lemma said the indictments were part of an effort to shift the narrative on fentanyl, from a fentanyl overdose to a fentanyl poisoning.
“You can overdose on a substance that is legal or illegal, but what we’re dealing with here is different because people are taking a substance that has been unknowingly poisoned to the level of lethal doses and that’s exactly what this is, a murder case,” Lemma said.
Since the beginning of the year, Seminole County said there have been 518 poisonings or overdoses, and 87 fatalities. Lemma said that represents a 21% decrease in poisonings and 22% decrease in deaths.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: