Accused in fentanyl death arrested in drug sting on day body found, court told

A man charged with manslaughter for selling a deadly dose of fentanyl three years ago told an undercover RCMP officer he bought pills by the thousands and bragged about how powerful they were, an Edmonton court was told Tuesday.

The undercover officer testified that Jordan Yarmey sold her nine fentanyl pills on January 12, 2016, and provided safety instructions along with his sales pitch.

“You won’t believe how good they are,” he told the officer, according to her testimony in Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench. “You won’t want the normal stuff anymore. It will ruin [cocaine] for you.”

Yarmey has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and trafficking in connection with the January 2016 overdose death of SzymonKalich.

The officer, whose identity is covered by a court-ordered publication ban, testified that Yarmey claimed he sampled all the drugs he sold to make sure they were safe.

‘That would kill you’

She said Yarmey, who was 25 at the time, warned her not to drink alcohol while snorting fentanyl.

“If you do the whole pill, that would kill you,” he told the officer, according to her testimony.

Court was told the officer made three drug buys from Yarmey in January 2016, including two purchases of fentanyl.

According to her testimony, another drug dealer initially put the officer in touch with Yarmey when she wanted to buy cocaine.

At Yarmey’s invitation, the officer drove to his south-side apartment, where the young man jumped into the passenger seat of her truck.

“He was very sick looking,” she said. “Very pale.”

She paid for the cocaine and asked Yarmey if he sold fentanyl.

“He said he could get me as much as I wanted,” the officer testified. “He was saying they were good. He said he took one the night before and they didn’t make him sick.”

Five days later, the officer said, she contacted Yarmey looking to buy fentanyl. He told her he bought pills “thousands at a time,” and the corporal agreed to drive to his apartment building again to make the buy.

Szymon Kalich died of a fentanyl overdose on Jan. 27, 2016. (Kalich Family)

In a subsequent text message, Yarmey told the officer he had used fentanyl the night before while sitting on a kitchen chair, and the drug made him fall forward and hit his forehead on the floor.

The next time the officer arranged to meet Yarmey was on Jan. 27, 2016, coincidentally the same day the accused discovered Kalich dead on his living room couch.

The RCMP officer’s team planned to arrest Yarmey for drug trafficking that day.

Edmonton police were called to the apartment building after Kalich, 33, was found dead in the third-floor hallway. 

That day, Yarmey told the undercover RCMP officer the drug buy would have to wait until police were finished questioning him about the body.

When the coast was clear, she drove to the apartment building, and Yarmey again got into the front seat of her truck.

She testified that Yarmey told her he didn’t really know Kalich, though the man had spent the past two days at his apartment doing drugs.

The accused, Jordan Yarmey, in a Facebook photo posted in July 2016. (Facebook/Jordan Yarmey )

Court was told Monday that Kalich spent his last weekend alive at the Addiction Recovery Centre in Edmonton. Days after he left the centre he was found dead just outside the door of Yarmey’s suite in a south-side apartment building.

Edmonton homicide detective Brian Roberston testified Monday that Yarmey, when interviewed about the dead body in the hallway, at first denied any knowledge.

When pressed, Roberston testified, Yarmey eventually admitted he’d found Kalich dead on the couch and had moved the body out into the hallway.

Robertson told court he concluded the death was an overdose and not a homicide.

The undercover RCMP officer testified on Tuesday that Yarmey told her Kalich had obtained his contact information from someone else in drug rehab, and had come to his apartment soon after he got out of the addiction facility.

The officer said Yarmey told her Kalich “was doing crazy Hollywood lines … a large amount of drugs. He was just doing killer lines.”

She said she asked Yarmey, “Did he get that fentanyl from you?” and the accused he told her, “Yeah, I gave it to him.”

The officer said Yarmey showed no emotion.

“Blank stare, blank eyes,” she testified. “He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t hanging his head. He just seemed dead.”

The conversation took place as the officer drove Yarmey to a nearby Tim Hortons to buy coffee. She said once she was inside the store, a team outside arrested Yarmey.

Moments later, she wrote down the details of their conversation.

According to an agreed statement of facts, officers found $400 of police undercover buy money in Yarmey’s pocket and seized 12 fentanyl pills from the undercover officer.

Nine months later, Edmonton police charged Yarmey with manslaughter.

The case marks the first time Edmonton police have laid a manslaughter charge in relation to a fentanyl overdose death, and the first time a case like this has gone to trial in Alberta.

The Court of Queen’s Bench trial is expected to last eight days.

Yarmey is not in custody.