Orange County car chase suspect linked to Texas teen’s fatal heroin overdose
Federal officials said a heroin distributor who led police on a high-speed pursuit in Orange County on Monday night was wanted in connection with injecting a Dallas teen with a fatal dose of the drug.
Jimison Coleman, 36, and his associates administered an overdose of the drug so they could steal $3,000 from her, law enforcement officials said.
Buena Park police arrested Coleman of Dallas in Irvine after noticing his license plate matched that of someone wanted on suspicion of murder in Texas.
Federal authorities say Coleman, who also goes by Jaymo, is linked to the death last year of 19-year-old Rian Lashley. He is also charged with conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute heroin, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Texas.
Cierra Allyn Rounds, 27, Glen William Brunton, 28, and Kathryn Grace Dirks, 25 are also named in a three-count indictment that includes drug charges resulting in Lashley’s death.
Rounds and Brunton joined Coleman, Dirks and Lashley for breakfast at a restaurant in Plano, Texas, on March 25, 2014, when they discovered that Lashley had $3,000, an iPhone and an iPad.
In the restaurant’s parking lot, Coleman gave five small bags of heroin to Brunton, who then sold one to Lashley for $100, prosecutors said. Lashley had never used heroin before that day, they said. The teenager and Dirks then drove to Rounds’ home in Dallas.
Authorities said it was there that Rounds and Dirks injected Lashley with heroin three times, hoping the drug would incapacitate her so they could steal her money, according to federal prosecutors.
When they saw that Lashley was in distress, they placed her in a tub filled with ice water, then on a couch, prosecutors said. But Lashley died that evening from the overdose.
Dirks later gave Coleman all or most of Lashley’s belongings, prosecutors said.
Rounds eventually pleaded guilty to her role in Lashley’s death. Brunton filed documents indicating he plans to also plead guilty in the case.
Dirks remains a fugitive.
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