Woman Arrested After Mailing Now-Deceased Friend Laced Heroin

A woman who allegedly mailed heroin to her friend in Darien has been charged with drug-induced homicide after he fatally overdosed on the drug in August.

Judge Daniel Guerin issued a $750,000 arrest warrant this Tuesday for Amanda Guarneri, 24, of New Jersey, DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin announced Wednesday. Guarneri was arrested in New York and is currently being held in custody at Suffolk County Jail.

She’s waiting to be extradited to DuPage County.

Guarneri has been formally charged with one count of Drug Induced Homicide and one count of Unlawful Delivery of a Controlled Substance for sending the heroin to Dane Carver, 26, who was in Darien at the time. Carver was also from New Jersey.

Carver was staying in an Extended Stay hotel while in the Chicago area on business, the State’s Attorney’s Office reported in a release. When he didn’t show up for work Aug. 8, his co-workers asked the hotel staff to check in on him.

Carver was unresponsive when they found him.

The Darien and Downers Grove police departments worked together to trace Carver’s death back to Guarneri. It is alleged that she mailed several packets of heroin laced with fentanyl — an opioid similar to morphine but up to 100 times more powerful — to her friend before he overdosed and was found dead.

State’s Attorney Berlin said the DuPage County community still has a long way to go in preventing drug-induced deaths and fatal overdoses.

“Within the past twenty-four hours, my office has filed drug-induced homicide charges against three individuals allegedly responsible for two deaths,” he said in the release. “If that isn’t an epidemic, I don’t know what is. This must end.”

He said cases like these are a reminder to drug dealers and buyers that police are actively searching for them and attempting to eliminate illegal and dangerous drug use in the area.

“While we have made progress in reducing heroin deaths in DuPage County through education, prosecution and the DuPage Narcan Program, the death of Mr. Carver reminds us that we still have a lot of work to do to rid our communities of this deadly poison,” he said.

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