Woman Sentenced for Selling Fentanyl-Laced Pill Leading to Overdose Death in St. Cloud

(KNSI) – A 28-year-old woman accused of selling a fentanyl-laced pill, leading to an accidental overdose in 2020, has been sentenced to prison.

In June of that year, 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. Her body was sent to the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy, which revealed she died of a fentanyl overdose.

The woman’s phone and purse were found in her car, but investigators couldn’t unlock the device. In February 2023, police used newly obtained technology and found messages between her and Ashley Anne-Marie Kapol.

Kapol was accused of selling a Perc 30 pill to the woman the day she died. Investigators say Perc 30 pills are known to contain fentanyl.

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 her anything and didn’t understand why it was her fault she died because she 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.

Kapol pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree murder by selling/giving/or distributing controlled substances. Stearns County Judge Andrew Pearson sentenced her to nearly eight years in prison on Thursday. She was given credit for 282 days in jail and ordered to pay $12,488.65 in restitution.

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.

The family said, “We are hoping more sentences like this will set a precedent so people are held accountable in this awful fentanyl crisis.”

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