Heroin overdose confirmed in 2012 Wheaton death
Augustina Taylor's death in the late-night hours of June 27, 2012, was caused by a lethal combination of heroin and cocaine, a former DuPage County forensic pathologist testified Friday.
Dr. Jeff Harkey testified in the drug-induced homicide trial of the friend alleged to have given or sold the heroin to Taylor, Jennifer Nere. Harkey said Taylor likely died shortly after injecting herself with the drugs in the bathroom of her mother's Wheaton apartment.
Harkey said Taylor's system contained three heroin-related opiates, including an unusually high level of morphine.
"The morphine levels in (Taylor's) system were way beyond what anyone would ever take medically," Harkey said. "I concluded Augustina Taylor died of heroin and cocaine intoxication due to intravenous drug use."
Prosecutors say Taylor was celebrating her release from a one-year prison sentence with family and friends at her mom's three-bedroom Wheaton apartment and adjoining pool into the night of June 27, 2012.
When one of Taylor's friends needed a ride home later in evening, Taylor called Nere to pick up the friend and also asked Nere to bring the drugs that officials say led to Taylor's death.
Prosecutors Friday also played a nearly hourlong video of Nere's first interview at the Wheaton Police Department on June 29, 2012, with officer Dan Salzmann. Salzmann also read a written statement Nere wrote following the interview.
Throughout the trial, defense attorney David Gaughan has called the video a "quote unquote confession" because he maintains Nere had done cocaine earlier in the day of the interview and might have still been under the influence.
In both the video and letter, Nere admitted to bringing Taylor the "rock and blow" in an old sock Salzmann said Nere had previously used to wipe blood from one of her track marks.
Inside the sock, prosecutors said, were two tin bindles of heroin, a crack pipe, a syringe and a small bag believed to have contained the crack cocaine.
Prosecutors say after receiving the drugs, Taylor rushed back up to the apartment, headed straight to the washroom and turned on the shower.
Family and friends later realized Taylor had been in the washroom for a long time and wasn't responding when they called for her.
Nere was taken into custody in DuPage County in September 2013 after being released from Cook County jail, where she had been held since Aug. 24, 2013, on unrelated charges.
If convicted of drug-induced homicide and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance, Nere faces between six and 30 years in prison. She has been in DuPage County jail since her arrest on $300,000 bail.
The trial resumes at 9 a.m. Monday in courtroom 4010.
The case against Nere is only the second drug-induced homicide case to be heard in DuPage County since the state legislature approved drug-induced homicide laws in 2011.
In May, DuPage County Judge Blanche Hill Fawell sentenced 26-year-old Malcolm Brown of Chicago to 10 years in prison for selling heroin to a Carol Stream man who then shared it with a friend who overdosed and died. Brown has since appealed the sentence, and Fawell has denied his request to reconsider the prison term.