MANSFIELD — A Mansfield woman who died in the Richland County Jail on April 14 died from fentanyl intoxication, according to the Richland County Coroner’s Office.
Candice Crose, 32, was pronounced dead at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital at 9:52 a.m. after she was transported following a “medical emergency,” according to Richland County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Chris Blunk, the jail administrator.
Bob Ball, chief investigator for the coroner’s office, said Tuesday the fentanyl intoxication was determined to be the cause for Crose’s death during an autopsy performed by the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is a “potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as an analgesic (pain relief) and anesthetic.
“It is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin as an analgesic,” according to the DEA website.
Ball said the amount of fentanyl in Crose’s system didn’t really matter.
“Less than a thumbnail can kill you,” he said.
In 2021, around 70,600 people in the United States died from a drug overdose that involved fentanyl, according to the website www.statista.com.
“This was the highest number of fentanyl overdose deaths ever recorded in the United States and a significant increase from the number of deaths reported in 2019,” the website said.
“Fentanyl overdoses are now the driving force behind the opioid epidemic, accounting for the majority of overdose deaths in the United States,” the website said.
According to the DEA, illicit fentanyl, primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico, is being distributed across the country and sold on the illegal drug market.
“Fentanyl is being mixed in with other illicit drugs to increase the potency of the drug, sold as powders and nasal sprays, and increasingly pressed into pills made to look like legitimate prescription opioids.
“Because there is no official oversight or quality control, these counterfeit pills often contain lethal doses of fentanyl, with none of the promised drug,” according to the DEA.
Crose was sentenced April 11 to one year in prison at the Ohio Reformatory for Women at Marysville on a felony escape conviction, according to Richland County Common Pleas Court records.
Blunk said the jail had been waiting for a written order from the court to transfer Crose.
He said Crose had been in the county jail since Feb. 5.
He said once that order, which was issued April 15 according to online court records, had been received that the jail would have contacted the state prison to make arrangements before transporting her to Marysville.
Crose’s death came less than a month before another county jail inmate died in custody after a “medical emergency.”
According to the autopsy report, Crose was found in the jail in cardiopulmonary arrest. The jail team used an AED in attempts to “shock” her heart. The Mansfield Fire Department rescue squad paramedics continued “shock” efforts and also gave her epinephrine. At the hospital, Crose received multiple rounds of epinephrine along with bicarb, Narcan, magnesium, calcium and amiodarone.
The autopsy, which said the death was an accident, found no evidence of significant external trauma.
Rebecca Westfield, 54, of Mansfield, was pronounced dead May 7 at 5:25 a.m. at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, according to Tom Stortz, an investigator with the Richland County Coroner’s Office.
Her body was also taken to Montgomery County for autopsy, though results have not yet been made public.
Blunk said May 15 both deaths are under investigation. A message seeking comment from Blunk on Tuesday morning had not been returned by the time this story was published.
