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SALT LAKE CITY — Two Utah men accused of supplying fentanyl that resulted in the deaths of two women were recently indicted in separate cases in federal court.
On May 1, Jared Kory Titcomb, 28, of Spanish Fork, was charged in federal court with distribution of fentanyl resulting in death.
In a separate case, Jerod Arthur Young, 48, of Fort Duchesne, was indicted on April 17 by a federal grand jury with the same crime.
Titcomb is accused of giving a woman fentanyl on Christmas Eve. The woman was found dead the next day in Spanish Fork, according to the U.S. attorney for Utah.
Young is also accused of giving fentanyl to a woman in November which also resulted in her death.
"During the investigation, law enforcement determined from the victim's phone that she communicated with Young and engaged in a financial transaction with him around her time of death. The fentanyl pill near her body when she was found deceased tested positive for fentanyl, and a medical examiner determined that the cause of the victim's death was fentanyl toxicity, and that the amount of fentanyl in the victim's system was toxic and lethal," according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The investigations were both part of the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, which combines federal, state and local law enforcement to help reduce violent crime.
In April, U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina Higgins announced the formation of the state's first Drug Overdose Task Force. Federal, state and local law enforcement will again be working jointly to go after drug dealers who knowingly cut their substances with fentanyl, resulting in the death or serious injury of the person who consumes the drugs.
