By Josh Barney

Published: May 5, 2008

Two Louisa County men have been charged with second-degree murder in a young mother’s fatal overdose on a prescription painkiller far more powerful than morphine.
Nichole Brockett, 24, of 30 Peterson Circle in Gordonsville, died the morning after Christmas, having apparently chewed on a fentanyl patch while drying off after a hot shower. Her husband returned from hunting to find her not breathing, and rescue crews were unable to save her.
Brockett was the mother of 5-week-old twins who were in the house when she overdosed and died.
The cause of death was later determined to be acute fentanyl poisoning, according to Maj. Donald Lowe of the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office. The narcotic is used to treat pain that no longer responds to other drugs, and it is often given to cancer patients. It is administered via a patch worn on the skin, similar to nicotine patches used to help people stop smoking.
Abusers use fentanyl for a euphoric high. Researchers say that many people who overdose remove the three-day dose from its patch and take it through injection, smoking or, as in Brockett’s death, ingestion.
“In her case, she had just come out of a hot shower, took a fentanyl patch, cut it up into quarters and was chewing on that,” Lowe said Monday. “You’re compromising the containment system, so by chewing on it, you can very easily overdose.”
Exposure to heat also can speed the absorption of fentanyl.
Investigators sought to determine where Brockett obtained the fentanyl and subsequently filed a second-degree murder charge against both Mathew Glenn Minster, 28, of 20 Anna Road in Louisa, and Randy Eugene Taylor, 34, of 354 Pinchtown Road in Louisa, according to Lowe. Both men also were charged with a felony count of possession of narcotics with intent to distribute.
Lowe said he does not anticipate additional charges, but the investigation is continuing. Both men are being held without bond at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange. They are scheduled to appear in court May 13.
Lowe said that Brockett’s death was the first fentanyl fatality he could remember in Louisa. But, he said, “we’re hearing more and more about it. It’s alarming.”
Researchers at the University of Florida at Gainesville found in a 2005 study that the number of sudden deaths from fentanyl overdoses had been climbing across the nation, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A total of 115 people died in Florida in 2004 alone. Closer to home, a 19-year-old Spotsylvania teen died in 2006 from what authorities believed was a fentanyl overdose.