Investigators believe that Shea Black, a Concord father of three, fatally overdosed at around 1:37 p.m. in a second-floor hotel room at the Days Inn downtown.
Stephanie Mills, the last person to see him alive, made a call on her cellphone immediately after finding Black, 43, unresponsive on one of the hotel room beds.
In the approximately 37 minutes that followed, Mills sent two text messages and made 20 calls to four different telephone numbers in an attempt to get help before finally dialing 911. At least three of her 20 calls were to Jennifer Mitchell, the woman police say supplied Mills the 2 grams of heroin/fentanyl that led to Black’s death on Nov. 25, 2017, two days after Thanksgiving.
Concord police Detective Thomas Yerkes shared those details under oath Friday afternoon in Merrimack County Superior Court, where Mitchell, 32, of Concord appeared for a bail hearing in the felony case brought against her in late April.
Mitchell faces a charge of sale of a controlled drug with death resulting, and she has been held at the county jail since her arrest on high cash bail. However, the state attorney general’s office argued Friday that Mitchell should be held without bail pending trial because she faces a maximum punishment of life in prison – with possibility of parole – if found guilty.
State law mandates that anyone arrested for a crime punishable by up to life in prison, where the evidence against them is strong, be held without bail.
After hearing nearly two hours of testimony from Yerkes and arguments from attorneys on both sides, Judge John Kissinger Jr. sided with prosecutors and revoked Mitchell’s bail pending trial.
“I do find the state has shown by clear and convincing evidence that the event was committed by Ms. Mitchell,” Kissinger said.
Guided by questions from Senior Assistant Attorney General Ben Agati, Yerkes detailed for the court the police investigation – from that 911 call on the afternoon of Nov. 25 to the arrests of Mitchell and Mills months later. Mills also faces a charge of sale of a controlled drug with death resulting and was arrested by Concord police in Putnam County, New York on April 20.
Yerkes testified that Mills met up with Mitchell in the bathroom of a restaurant – where Mitchell worked – on Fort Eddy Road to buy drugs on the evening of Nov. 24. Video surveillance footage shows Mitchell entering the women’s restroom, followed by Mills, Yerkes described while viewing printed images of the footage.
Mills told police Black had picked her up that evening and that “he wanted her to contact her source to buy him drugs, to which she agreed,” according to an affidavit prepared by Yerkes. Black gave Mills $200 for the drugs and waited in his car while Mills went inside the restaurant, police said.
Once at the Days Inn, Black snorted “a line of heroin” and laid down, the affidavit says. However, he quickly sat back up and then fell to the floor, causing Mills to believe he had overdosed because she could not wake him up. Yerkes said Mills called a friend who was able to revive Black that first time.
Bank records obtained by police show that Black left the hotel sometime Saturday before 2 a.m. and went to the Dunkin’ Donuts on South Main Street where he purchased donuts for his family. When his fiance woke up at around 7 a.m., she found Black sleeping on the couch, Yerkes testified.
“Did she know about his drug use?” Agati asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Yerkes replied.
When Black woke up that morning, he told his fiance he was going out to buy a birthday present for one of the children and that he’d meet for dinner at around 6 p.m.
He left the house at around 10:30 a.m. Video surveillance footage taken from the Days Inn shows he checked into the hotel approximately 20 minutes later for a second night.
A pizza was delivered to the hotel room shortly before noon. After eating, Black snorted from the same batch of heroin/fentanyl he’d purchased the night before, Yerkes said. This time he could not be revived.
Public defender Mariana “Maya” Dominguez questioned Yerkes on the witness stand Friday about whether investigators had really looked into every possible source of the drugs that resulted in Black’s death.
“I think the state has set out a reasonable case for the sale of drugs,” Dominguez later told Kissinger. “However, I think they’ve failed to show that the drugs consumed by Black on the 25th were in fact the drugs sold to Stephanie Mills on the 24th.”
From the beginning, investigators said Mills changed her story about what had happened several times. Dominguez pressed them on that point Friday, while asking how they could build a case entirely on Mills’s “side of the story.” She added that known drug dealers entered the hotel, including one whom revived Black on Nov. 24, the initial time he overdosed.
Despite her arguments, Kissinger said he felt prosecutors’ had met their burden of proof for the purposes of revoking bail.
“Again, this is not a jury trial; this is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.)