BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A Bloomington woman is accused of dealing drugs laced with dangerous controlled substances to a man who fatally overdosed in July, according to newly filed court documents.
Makayla Matlock, 24, was charged Friday with dealing in a controlled substance resulting in death, a Level 1 felony, and dealing in a narcotic drug, a Level 5 felony.
Bloomington Police responded to a possible overdose at a home on Nancy Street just after 4 a.m. on July 2, according to court documents.
Inside the home, police found a man dead near a small amount of powder they believed to be heroin.
In an interview with police, the man’s grandmother, who found him unresponsive, said he had arrived at the home around 10 p.m. the night before.
Court documents state police also found a phone near the man’s body. A later search of the phone reportedly uncovered two message threads on Facebook Messenger.
Investigators say one of the text threads was Matlock and every message was marked “Makayla unsent a message.”
As of the publication of this article, the man in the other text thread named in court documents has not been charged in the case, according to online court records, and as such, IUSTV News is not naming that person.
The uncovered messages showed a drug sale, according to court documents, and police used Cash App records to show that the man had sent Matlock $20 just hours before the overdose.
In an interview with police, Matlock admitted to selling 0.1 grams of “mostly cut” heroin to the man, who had overdosed just days earlier, on June 28 or 29, from a “completely uncut” amount of heroin, according to court documents.
Days after the drug deal and learning that the man had died, Matlock admitted to deleting all the messages because she “was in fear of someone or law enforcement finding the messages,” police said.
On Aug. 6, the Monroe County Coroner ruled the man’s death an accident due to “mixed drug toxicity” involving xylazine and fentanyl.
Xylazine is a non-opioid sedative that can slow down the brain and breathing and is responsible for a growing number of overdose deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid approved by the Food and Drug Administration for pain relief and anesthesia, according to the CDC. However, illegally manufactured fentanyl is responsible for the dramatic increase in drug overdose deaths in the U.S.
In 2022, 74,000 drug overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the CDC.
Matlock is scheduled to make her initial court appearance Monday, according to online court records. She is already facing separate drug-related charges in a 2023 case.
If convicted, Matlock could face a maximum sentence of 40 years for the Level 1 felony and up to six years for the Level 5 felony, according to Indiana sentencing guidelines.
