An accused drug dealer charged with selling tainted heroin that killed a 22-year-old remained on the run for months but was captured Monday — a day before the one-year anniversary of the victim’s death.

A fugitive team with the U.S. Marshals Service captured Eric Kelly Carson, less than two weeks after Louisville Metro Police asked for tips from the public through social media and news releases with a plea, “Help us get this man in custody.”

Carson, known as “Max,” was booked at the Oldham County Jail on charges of dealing heroin laced with fentanyl, which resulted in the overdose death of a Shepherdsville man. If convicted, the 22-year-old suspect faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in a federal prison, where parole is not an option.

He had been on the run since the grand jury indicted him in October.

The victim, a former high school football player, had been in recovery but relapsed. He sought heroin the day he died but the drug had been laced with much deadlier fentanyl, now Louisville, Kentucky and the nation’s No. 1 killer. 

LMPD detectives and Kentucky State Police teamed to search Carson’s apartment on Echelon Way, where they found about a kilo of heroin mixed with fentanyl, a stack of cash and evidence of drug trafficking, according to allegations in a police citation.

That amount is equal to about 13,500 doses and, because of the potency of fentanyl, each one could be lethal, said U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman, the top federal prosecutor for the Western District of Kentucky. A tiny amount about the size of Abraham Lincoln’s cheek on a penny can kill.

Reporter Beth Warren: bwarren@courier-journal.com; 502-582-7164; Twitter @BethWarrenCJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/bethw.

 

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