By Peggy Mackenzie
A Greenbrier County man has been charged with felony murder in Jackson County in connection with a heroin overdose death.
Casey Cantrell, 40, is charged in the death of Shannon Saffer, 29, who, according to authorities, was dropped off at Jackson General Hospital in Ripley early Tuesday morning suffering from an apparent heroin overdose. He was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived.
According to a criminal complaint, after looking for leads, Jackson County deputies located Cantrell at his home in Frankford, where he was arrested and charged with obstructing and then taken to jail. Cantrell was charged with murder on Wednesday morning.
“I know that a lot of people don’t agree with a felony murder charge in regards to something someone voluntarily did, but that’s the West Virginia Code and that’s what we enforce,” said Jackson County Sheriff Tony Boggs. In West Virginia, you can be charged with murder if someone dies in commission of a felony. In this case, that would be supplying heroin, he said.
Cantrell confessed that he brought the heroin to Jackson County and planned to get together with Shannon and Patrick Saffer and ingest it. He said the three of them used the heroin that he provided and that Cantrell was to receive $15 cash and a carton of cigarettes from Shannon Saffer in exchange, the complaint said. Cantrell said he believed the quantity of heroin he supplied was one or two 0. 1 gram units and said he had no idea why this occasion was any different than any other occasion in that this use turned fatal for Saffer.
The complaint said Cantrell gave officers a detailed account of transporting Saffer’s body to Jackson General Hospital, where he dropped it off and left. He ended his interview saying he had additional heroin in his residence, but he would not disclose its whereabouts.
Cantrell was arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Jackson County Magistrate Court by Magistrate Tom Reynolds. Cantrell remains lodged in Southern Regional Jail without bond.
Deputies determined that Saffer’s brother, Patrick Saffer, was one of the two who dropped him off at the hospital. He was located at a trailer in Ravenswood and arrested on an obstructing charge. He has since bonded out.