Woman Charged With Murder in Three Year Old Fatal Overdose Case

(KNSI) — A 27-year-old woman is jailed three years after allegedly selling fentanyl to a woman who died of an accidental overdose.

According to court documents, police were called to investigate a death after a woman’s body was found in an apartment in the 3300 block of 14th Street North in St. Cloud just before midnight on June 20th, 2020. A person at the apartment said she had been trying to reach the woman all day but became concerned when she didn’t respond to calls or text messages. She said she found her in her room, not breathing and called the police. Her body was sent to the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy, which revealed she died of an accidental fentanyl overdose.

The victim’s phone and purse were found in her car, but investigators couldn’t unlock the device.

In February of 2023, they tried again to gain access to her phone with newly obtained technology and found messages between the woman and Ashley Anne-Marie Kapol. Kapol is accused of selling the victim a Perc 30 pill the day she died. Investigators say Perc 30 pills are known to contain fentanyl. The last message between the two women police found was Kapol asking the woman to come outside.

The criminal complaint says police spoke with Kapol in April of 2023 while she was in the Benton County Jail, and she admitted she sold pills, including Perc 30, but denied selling the victim anything and didn’t understand why it was her fault they died because they chose to take the pill. In a jail phone call from May 1st, Kapol admitted she sold the pill and that the other person died.

A family source shared with KNSI that the victim was on a prescribed pain management regimen following a car crash, and after the COVID-19 lockdowns, she wasn’t working, care became less accessible, and “this may have been one of the reasons why she was reaching out for some other pills.” The family believes she thought she was taking Percocet and instead suffered a fatal overdose.

Kapol had numerous warrants out for her arrest in other counties from cases dating back to 2021. She was arrested Wednesday and is charged with third degree murder.

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