Crime & Safety

2 Charged With Murder in Heroin Overdose

An Apple Valley woman is accused of getting her boyfriend heroin from a Morton, MN, man.

An Apple Valley woman faces a murder charge following accusations that she got heroin for her boyfriend, who died Sept. 8 in Rosemount.

“This is the third time since 2004 that we have charged the crime of Third Degree Murder in Dakota County in connection with the unlawful selling or giving away a controlled substance which causes death,” a news release quoted Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom. “Heroin use continues to be a serious and growing problem in the Twin Cities and across this state.”

The case began Sept. 8 when Rosemount police went to a home in response to a report of a man who wasn’t breathing. Officers found the man, later identified as 29-year-old Robert Eugene Trentman, unresponsive, according to the court documents. The Hennepin County medical examiner later determined that he died from a mix of heroin and alcohol.

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His girlfriend, 29-year-old Jennifer Lynn Spicer, said she and Trentman had talked the day before about Spicer’s getting heroin for them to get high. She called a Morton, MN, man she knew only as Tim, who agreed to buy heroin for them

At 8 p.m. Sept. 7, Spicer and Trentman met the man, she said. After getting gas at the Rosemount Kwik Trip, she and the man dropped Trentman off at a nearby bar and then drove to Brooklyn Center.

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Spicer said she gave “Tim” $80 and watched him buy two baggies of heroin from someone she didn’t know. When he returned, he gave her one of the baggies and injected the contents of the second into himself. He then drove her back to Rosemount and dropped her off at the bar where they’d left Trentman.

Spicer met Trentman, who appeared to be drunk, according to the court documents. A short time later, they returned to Spicer’s home. Spicer gave Trentman the heroin. He used a credit card to chop the drug into four lines. Then Spicer and Trentman snorted two lines using a rolled up dollar bill.

She said they went to sleep shortly afterward in Spicer’s bedroom. When she woke up the next morning, Trentman was cold and not breathing. She called for her roommate, moved Trentman to the floor and tried to revive him with CPR. When that didn’t work, either she or her roommate called 911.

Officers found a plastic baggie with trace amounts of heroin on the floor of Spicer’s bedroom and a dollar bill with what appeared to be powder residue in her purse.

They also found numerous text message to a phone number belonging to Timothy Patrick Bednarchuk, who lives in Morton. Spicer also identified Bednarchuk in a photo line-up. Video from the Rosemount Kwik Trip also showed Spicer, Trentman and Bednarchuk, and the car in the video was registered to Bednarchuk.

Both Spicer and Bednarchuk have been charged with one count of third-degree murder—which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison and/or a $40,000 to $25,000 fine.

 



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