Jury deliberating drug-induced homicide case

The fate and freedom of a 27-year-old Wauconda woman accused of giving a friend the heroin that later killed him is now in the hands of a McHenry County jury.

Jurors this afternoon began deliberating whether Amanda K. Coots is guilty of drug-induced homicide in connection with the death of Rustin Cawthon, found dead June 7 inside a Super 8 motel room in McHenry.

Authorities say Cawthon, 38, of McHenry, overdosed after injecting himself twice with heroin given to him by Coots. If found guilty, Coots would face a mandatory six to 30 years in prison.

They key evidence against Coots was a videorecorded interview she gave police about two months after the death. In the recording played to jurors Wednesday morning, Coots admits calling her dealer to the motel room the night before Cawthon was found dead, buying heroin with money supplied by Cawthon and then giving him two bags to inject.

Coots said she was reluctant to hand over the second bag because Cawthon had been clean for several weeks before that night,

"I finally say, 'OK, Rusty, you're a grown man, you can do what you want,'" she told police. "It was his money (that bought the heroin) anyhow."

Minutes after injecting the second bag, authorities said, Cawthon fell unconscious and began having trouble breathing. Instead of calling for help, Assistant McHenry County David Johnston said in his closing argument, Coots gathered up the remaining heroin, called a cab and left the motel.

"She took the stuff that was important to her and left behind what wasn't," Johnston said.

"This is a connect-the-dots case," he added. "There are three dots. This defendant gave heroin to Rustin Cawthon. Rustin Cawthon injected that heroin. Rustin Cawthon died."

But Coots attorney Colin MacMeekin told jurors that prosecutors were going after the wrong person, arguing that they should have charged his client's drug dealer instead of her.

"I think the evidence shows that Amanda Coots and Rustin Cawthon are consumers," he said. "They are at the bottom of the food chain in the heroin trade. It could have just as easily been Amanda, and not Rustin Cawthon, who died that night."