Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Charges Drug Dealer in Overdose Death

Matt Boster

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Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Feb 20 2019 11:29 AM

A Fort Walton Beach man is being charged in connection with the overdose death of a 25-year old woman in September 2017. The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Drug today charged 38-year old Thomas Baldwin III of Green Acres Avenue with sale of a controlled substance and manslaughter.

Investigators were able to link Baldwin with the fentanyl related death of Rhiannon Reiss who was found unresponsive inside a home on Chinas Cove September 29th of 2017. The Medical Examiner’s Office stated the cause of death was “acute fentanyl exposure.”

Fentanyl is commonly substituted and/or mixed with heroin and can be lethal in small doses. A witness said he and Reiss used what he believed to be heroin prior to her overdosing. The purchase of the drug was traced back to Baldwin and OCSO investigators say Baldwin’s act of selling narcotics caused Reiss’s death.

Baldwin was already being held in the Okaloosa County jail on a charge of Failure to Appear on an original charge of Possession of a Controlled Substance.

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