New trial denied in Wheaton heroin overdose death
A Summit woman found guilty last month of supplying her friend with a fatal dose of heroin in 2012 in Wheaton now faces between six and 30 years in prison.
DuPage County Judge Daniel Guerin Thursday denied Jennifer Nere's attorney's request for a new trial and scheduled Nere's sentencing for 9 a.m. on Oct. 15.
Nere, 34, was just the second person to be charged with, tried and convicted on drug-induced homicide charges in DuPage County. A jury of 12 also convicted Nere of the lesser charge of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.
Prosecutors say Nere brought heroin to her friend, 32-year-old Wheaton resident Augustina Taylor, during the late-night hours of June 27, 2012, less than a day after Taylor was released from prison, following a family party celebrating her release.
In the early morning hours of June 28, 2012, Taylor was found dead in her mother's washroom. Her death was ruled an overdose from a mixture of cocaine and heroin.
During last month's three-day trial, prosecutors 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 after the interview.
Throughout the trial, defense attorney David Gaughan called the video a "quote unquote confession" because he maintained 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 said after receiving the drugs around midnight, Taylor rushed back up to the apartment, headed straight to the washroom and turned on the shower. Police found her dead a short time later after breaking down the locked door.