Alleged Templeton drug dealer charged with murder in overdose death
San Luis Obispo County prosecutors have charged an alleged drug dealer from Templeton with murder after one of his customers died of a lethal overdose of the powerful opiate fentanyl.
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday filed a charge of murder against Timothy Clarke Wolfe.
Wolfe, 22, also faces two felony charges of possessing and selling a controlled substance.
A warrant for Wolfe’s arrest was signed by a judge on Tuesday, and as of Wednesday afternoon, Wolfe was listed in custody at the San Luis Obispo County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
Assistant district attorney Eric Dobroth confirmed Wednesday afternoon that Wolfe is accused of murdering Emilio Velci, who died March 9 in his home city of Atascadero.
Dobroth said that Wolfe sold Velci fake 30-miligram pills of the pain medication Percocet, which Dobroth said investigators suspect were pressed in Mexico. Velci then died of an overdose, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Dobroth said another overdose — this one non-fatal — occurred in Atascadero on March 18 involving the same fake 30 mg Percocet pills. Officials are concerned that the pills may still be in circulation in northern San Luis Obispo County, the assistant district attorney said.
The case against Wolfe represents the first in recent memory in which a dealer was charged with murder for a fatal overdose.
District Attorney Dan Dow said in a statement Wednesday that buying and selling black market prescription drugs is “deadly dangerous.”
“While a purchaser may believe they are buying a pharmaceutical-grade painkiller, there is no way to know who made them, where they came from, or what is in them,” Dow said. “Sadly, as happens too often, it leads to overdose and death.”
“We will not tolerate the criminal distribution of heroin, fentanyl, and other hard drugs because too many young people have been dying across our country and here in our community,” he continued. “Individuals who knowingly sell these deadly pills in our community will be aggressively prosecuted, and when the facts support it, they will be charged with murder.”
As of late Wednesday, no court hearing had yet been scheduled for Wolfe’s arraignment and he did not have an attorney listed in court records.
This story was originally published May 20, 2020 at 4:56 PM.
