VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – A Deltona woman was arrested on manslaughter charges Friday after investigators say she sold a 29-year-old man the dose of heroin that killed him more than a year ago.
Deputies with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said Michael Holland, 29, was found dead in his Osteen home on May 25, 2019. He died of an opioid overdose.
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Detectives used phone records and other evidence to trace the fatal dose back to Kristen Lower, 27, showing she provided Holland with heroin mixed with fentanyl.
“The text messages are right there. I mean she puts herself -- technology puts her at that house at the same time they’re exchanging text messages. So, based on that, you know the last person that he saw was her,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said.
On Friday, Lower was arrested during a traffic stop conducted by the Deltona Crime Suppression Team. She was arrested on drug possession charges, driving with a suspended license and manslaughter.
Lower was booked into the county jail and posted $30,500 bail on Friday.
“These parasite drug dealers know that somebody has a problem and they’re going to exploit it to the fullest extent, and they don’t care whether they die or not from the poison that they’re peddling,” Chitwood said.
Her arrest marks the seventh murder or manslaughter charge since 2017 connected to an overdose death, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Chitwood said he wishes his deputies could do the same for all families of overdose victims.
“We have hundreds and hundreds of overdose deaths a year," Chitwood said. "We can’t get every single one of the dealers but some people are being held accountable and some people are going to sit in a jail cell because of what they did.”