Men Accused Of Raping, Drugging Bucks Woman Charged With Murder

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Two men accused of raping and drugging a 24-year-old from Bucks County will now face first-degree murder charges, sources report.

A grand jury in Miami-Dade County, where Christine Englehardt died of a fentanyl overdose last spring, found North Carolina men Evoire Collier, 21, and Dorian Taylor, 25, responsible for her death. This resulted in the new charges, according to a report by 6ABC.

Englehardt, who graduated from Council Rock North in 2014 and worked as a manager at Jules Thin Crust, had been on a trip to Miami when she was found unconscious at the Albion Hotel on March 18. Rescue workers pronounced her dead at the scene.

A Miami-Dade Medical Examiner gave her cause of death on July 12 as "prone positioning while under the influence of Fentanyl and Ethanol." Originally, Collier and Taylor were charged with burglary with assault or battery, sexual battery, credit card fraud, and petty theft.

Watching security footage from the night, police believed the two men to be the same ones seen arriving at the hotel at 1 a.m. with Englehardt and leaving without her at 1:37 a.m. An autopsy found that her blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit.

Investigators have said they believe the men drugged Englehardt with oxycodone — which they found on them upon arrest — and then raped her, before stealing her phone and credit cards. Police said that Collier told them he'd believed the pills were Percocet.

"Although the concentration of fentanyl detected is fatal, a component of positional asphyxia, with her face pressed down into soft bedding as a result of physical restraint and/or chemical impairment to facilitate sexual assault, cannot be excluded," the medical report said.

Collier's attorney, Phil Reizenstein, told the Miami Herald that he was "stunned" by the homicide charges, and that he believed Englehardt had ingested so many kinds of drugs that it would be difficult to pin down what killed her.

"I think they're going to regret doing this," he told the outlet. "I think by the time I'm finished with them, they're never going to be able to say she died of this."

6ABC reports that the grand jury added a second first-degree murder charge against Taylor for supplying the same opioid to Walter Riley, 21, of Chicago —who was found unconscious on a nearby street and died two days after Englehardt. The men remain in jail in Miami.

Stay informed about what’s going on in Bucks County, or in your local area. Sign up for Patch emails and don't miss a minute of local and state news.

Got tips, story ideas, or questions in Lower Bucks County? Email kate.fishman@patch.com.