Aurora man gets 7 years in fatal heroin overdose
A 42-year-old Aurora man who slit his wrists after finding his longtime girlfriend dead of a heroin overdose in 2013 is going to prison for drug-induced homicide.
Charles L. Minard, of the 900 block of Grove Street, was sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to providing the drugs that caused the death of Taffie Thompson, 41.
Kane County Judge Clint Hull accepted the plea in which prosecutors dismissed other, less serious charges, such as possession of a controlled substance and possession of a hypodermic needle, according to court records.
Minard faced a minimum of six years and a maximum of 30 years in prison on the drug-induced homicide charge.
Aurora police were first called to the 900 block of Grove March 25, 2013, after a woman returned there and was greeted by a dog covered in blood.
Authorities went inside and found Minard unresponsive on a couch in a pool of blood with his wrist slit in a suicide attempt, according to a search warrant. Thompson, a 41-year-old Aurora woman and recovering heroin addict, was found dead in Minard's bedroom.
Minard was hospitalized and later charged in May 2013.
According to testimony from a pretrial hearing, Minard told authorities that Thompson had overdosed on heroin, so he decided to kill himself. Minard's attorneys unsuccessfully tried to have his statements banned from court, arguing he was suffering from heroin withdrawal and didn't not talk to police voluntarily. After Hull denied this move, Minard pleaded guilty instead of heading to trial.
Under state law, Minard must serve at least 75 percent of his sentence, or about 63 months. He gets credit for 341 days being held at the Kane County jail while the case was pending, records show.
Minard's guilty plea was the second this month in Kane County for drug-induced homicide.
A 22-year-old Batavia man was sentenced to eight years in prison for supplying the fatal dose of heroin to a 24-year-old South Elgin woman in April 2013. A co-defendant, Andrea Nielson, 24, formerly of South Elgin, also is charged with drug-induced homicide and is due in court Wednesday.
In 2013, the Kane County coroner's office confirmed 22 heroin overdose deaths in Kane County.
In 2012, heroin claimed 27 lives in Kane County, and so far this year, there have been four heroin overdose deaths in Kane County, the coroner's office said.