Georgia man admits selling heroin that killed woman

ROME (AP) - A Georgia man has admitted selling heroin that caused a woman’s death hours later, prosecutors said.

Shane Terhune, 41, pleaded guilty Friday to a charge of distributing heroin and acknowledged that the drug he sold caused the woman’s overdose death in July 2018, according to a news release from federal prosecutors.

"Terhune’s act of trafficking narcotics tragically ended the life of a young woman," Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine said in the release. "Opioid overdoses will be investigated as a federal priority and those who sell this poison will be held accountable for the death and serious injury that it causes."

Terhune met the 25-year-old woman and her fiance the afternoon of July 6, 2018, and sold them a plastic bag of heroin, prosecutors said. The woman then injected the heroin and died of an overdose that night.

Terhune, who lives in Rome, has a history of drug trafficking offenses, prosecutors said. He’s set to be sentenced on Oct. 19.

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