Drugs Suspected in Death of Man Found Lying in Road

who used CPR to revive a man who they found not breathing and without a pulse, lying in the middle of Wayside Lane, the man has died in a hospital, a police department spokesman has confirmed.

The man, a 29-year-old resident of Levittown, Pa., whose name is still being withheld by police, died Nov. 14 at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton, a week after he was found in cardiac arrest in Lawrence Township, according to Lt. Charles Edgar.

Township police have previously said they suspect drug use was involved in the man’s collapse. Edgar this week said that drugs are still believed to have played a role in the man’s death.

However, while an autopsy has been performed, the exact cause of death will not be known until the results of toxicology tests, performed on the body by the Mercer County Medical Examiner’s Office, become available.

Responding to a 911 call about 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6, police officers found the man sprawled out in the roadway, next to a row of parked cars, on Wayside Lane, not far from the corner of Lawrence Road (Route 206).

The man was not breathing and was pulseless. Officers immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation efforts. A township ambulance crew and Capital Health System paramedics soon arrived and took over patient care.

At some point, rescuers managed to get the man’s heart working again and get him breathing once more, and he was rushed to the hospital in Trenton.

Police immediately established a crime scene and launched their investigation. Later, about 11:30 a.m. Monday, Nov. 7, .

Edgar said the entire incident remains under investigation by township detectives, in consultation with the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

As part of that investigation, authorities are working to determine if anyone was responsible for providing the man with drugs.

Under New Jersey’s “strict liability for drug-induced death” statute, a person can be charged with a first-degree crime if they manufacture, distribute or dispense certain drugs and a death results from the injection, inhalation or ingestion of those drugs.

In December 1996, William Ricker, a Jackson Township resident who was 50 years old at the time, pleaded guilty to a “strict liability” charge and admitted that he had provided heroin to Christine Dunn, his 42-year-old extramarital lover who was found dead in a van parked at Mercer Mall in Lawrence Township earlier that year, according to news accounts from the time. 

Ricker was later sentenced to a maximum of 18 years in state prison, but New Jersey State Department of Corrections records show that Ricker was paroled in 2001.   

Police ask anyone with information about the Nov. 6 incident on Wayside Lane to call Detective James Smith at (609) 896-1111.