Man charged in federal court in connection with girlfriend’s fatal overdose in Dinwiddie | Crime, Police & Fire

The next day, on Dec. 23, a woman identified only as “ELT” was found unresponsive at her Dinwiddie County residence by her mother, according to an affidavit filed by an investigator with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

She was pronounced dead soon after paramedics and sheriff’s deputies arrived. Deputies found an opened plastic baggie near her body that held a white powder that was sent to a Drug Enforcement Administration laboratory and found to contain fentanyl and acetylfentanyl.

The dead woman’s mother told the deputies that her daughter had a drug addiction and that her drugs of choice were heroin and cocaine, according to the affidavit. The state medical examiner’s office ruled that the death was accidental and the result of fentanyl and acetylfentanyl toxicity.

Investigators interviewed Pruitte, who said ELT was his girlfriend. After waiving his rights, Pruitte told the investigators that the last time he had seen ELT was when he overdosed at his residence about three weeks before his girlfriend died, the affidavit says.

Pruitte said that at time his girlfriend died, she and he had not been using drugs but that she called him, said she wanted to get high, and begged him for the phone number of one of his drug dealers, Miles Johnson.

Johnson, 39, of Petersburg, has not been charged in connection with Pruitte’s case. However, records show that he was one of seven men arrested in a drug and firearm sting by Petersburg police and the ATF. Johnson is charged with distribution of heroin and/or fentanyl.

Pruitte allegedly told investigators that he called Johnson, who agreed to bring some heroin to ELT. “Pruitte stated that his role was just to put [Johnson and ELT] together, and thereafter he let them do their thing,” according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says that Pruitte told investigators that ELT received the drugs within an hour of calling Pruitte and that within 20 minutes she was dead. Investigators said phone records from that evening showed that there had been calls between Pruitte, ELT and the dealer.

Pruitte allegedly told the investigators that he deleted all the text messages from that evening and said, “The dope that [Johnson] dropped off killed her.”