Washington man gets 10 years for drug-induced homicide – News – Journal Star

A Washington man will serve a 10-year prison term for supplying heroin laced with a deadly additive that combined to kill a Pekin man two years ago.

Tayrod Fields, 25, accepted that sentence when he pleaded guilty Monday to drug-induced homicide, punishable by up to 30 years.

He acknowledged selling the heroin, cut with fentanyl, on Aug. 25, 2017, that killed Joseph Amero, 25, in his residence on North Eighth Street later that day.

Amero’s girlfriend and evidence in calls and texts from Amero’s cellphone led police to Fields, who later said he had sold heroin to Amero about 10 times, including on the day of his death. Fields said he had obtained the drug from a supplier in the Taft Homes complex in Peoria, according to court records.

Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller often prescribed for late stages of cancer, has grown in recent years as an additive to street-sold heroin. Addicts often don’t know the powerful drug is present in their usual heroin dose, turning it into a potential killer.

In 2017 the county coroner’s office recorded 26 drug-related deaths. Heroin, fentanyl or the two combined played a role in 12 of them, the office determined.

Half of those deaths, including Amero’s, came in August. The Pekin Police Department warned in July that it was finding higher quantities of “purple heroin,” named for the drug’s color in liquid form when laced with fentanyl.

Fields must serve at least 75 percent of his term. He was given credit for the 392 days he’s spent in custody since his arrest.