Murrieta Man Accused Of Supplying Fatal Fentanyl Dose Will Stand Trial

MURRIETA, CA - A probationer accused of supplying a fatal dose of fentanyl to a 32-year-old Wildomar man must stand trial for second-degree murder, a judge ruled Friday.

Alexander Dimitrios Magos, 28, of Murrieta was arrested last October following an 18-month-long Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigation into the death of Shane Carlin.

At the end of a preliminary hearing Friday at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta, Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson ruled there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial on the murder count and scheduled a post- preliminary hearing arraignment for Sept. 7.

The defendant is being held without bail at the nearby Byrd Detention Center.

According to sheriff's Sgt. Ryan Marcuse, on the afternoon of May 6, 2021, deputies were summoned to the 23000 block of Peggy Lane, just east of Interstate 15, to investigate reports of an unconscious man in a residence.

Deputies and paramedics arrived within minutes and found Carlin "not breathing," Marcuse said.

The victim was taken to Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Marcuse said an autopsy "determined Carlin was a victim of fentanyl poisoning."

The sheriff's Overdose Death & Narcotics Unit took over the investigation, eventually gathering sufficient evidence to identify Magos as the person "responsible for selling the fentanyl that killed Carlin," the sergeant alleged.

How the convicted felon and victim knew one another was not disclosed.

Magos was taken into custody without incident at his residence on Mountain Pride Drive last Oct. 27.

According to court records, he has prior convictions for possession of controlled substances for sale, smuggling controlled substances into jail and driving under the influence.

Since February 2021, over two dozen people countywide have been charged with murder in connection with fentanyl poisonings.

According to public safety officials, there were 503 confirmed fentanyl-related fatalities countywide last year, compared to just under 400 in 2021, a 200-fold increase from 2016, when there were only two.

Fentanyl is manufactured in overseas labs, principally in China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which says the synthetic opioid is smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by cartels. The drug is 80-100 times more potent than morphine and can be mixed into any number of street narcotics and prescription drugs, without a user knowing what he or she is consuming. Ingestion of only two milligrams can be fatal.

Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45 years old, statistics show.