2 appear in court to face murder charges in woman’s overdose death

Fatal overdoses killed four acquaintances, all young adults from Las Vegas, over a five-month period that began in October 2020.

Three people are now facing murder charges in connection with two of those deaths, court records show.

Tylar Hager, 24, and Christopher Gonzalez, 23, are accused of providing counterfeit prescription pills that led to one of the deadly overdoses. The two appeared in court Tuesday after they were charged this month with second-degree murder and conspiracy to violate the Uniformed Controlled Substances Act, court records show.

They were arrested in connection with the fatal overdose of a 20-year-old woman who died March 18, prosecutor Michael Schwartzer said after the court hearing. The Clark County coroner’s office identified the woman as Avianna Cavanaugh. Her death was ruled an accident due to combined toxic effects of fentanyl and hydroxyzine.

The case has ties to Aria Styron, who was arrested in October after allegedly selling counterfeit prescription pills that killed Cavanaugh’s friend, 21-year-old Adrianna Folks, Schwartzer said.

“She’s in the same circle of people,” he said.

Further information about the arrests of Hager and Gonzalez, or how police connected them to Cavanaugh’s death, was not immediately available Tuesday.

Gonzalez’s public defender, Garrett Ogata, declined to comment on the case. Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Karen Bennett-Haron on Tuesday appointed Hager a private defense attorney, who was not present during the hearing.

The two defendants remained in the Clark County Detention Center on Tuesday without bail. Bennett-Haron ordered them to appear in court again on March 8.

Hager and Gonzalez are the ninth and tenth people in the past two years who have faced murder charges in Clark County after officials said they gave or sold drugs to someone who later died. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said earlier this month that prosecutors were investigating up to 20 pending cases.

None of the cases has resulted in a murder conviction, but three men — 33-year-old Christopher Candito, 21-year-old Jayden Hughes and 32-year-old Marcas Crowley — have pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges.

Four deaths

Cavanaugh, Folks and two others connected to the women died of overdoses during a five-month period from October 2020 through March, according to Styron’s arrest warrant.

Styron’s boyfriend died of a fatal overdose on Oct. 29, 2020, while Folks’ boyfriend, identified as Eric Dos Santos, was found dead of an overdose on Jan. 23, 2021, the warrant said.

Detectives with the multi-jurisdictional Overdose Response Team, which was formed in July 2020, were “actively investigating” Dos Santos’ death, according to the warrant, signed in September.

Police also investigated the death of Styron’s boyfriend, identified as Austin Peters, although detectives determined that Styron “was not the source of supply for Peters that ultimately caused his demise,” a Metropolitan Police Department detective wrote in the warrant. No one has been charged in connection with Dos Santos’ or Peters’ deaths, Schwartzer said Tuesday.

Less than six weeks after her boyfriend’s death, Folks was found dead in her bedroom on March 4 from fentanyl toxicity, the coroner’s office has said.

Days earlier, Folks had told Cavanaugh that she was searching for oxycodone, according to phone records detailed in the warrant.

“I just realized,” Cavanaugh wrote in a text message to Folks. “Aria has some.”

The night before Folks died, she texted Cavanaugh again and said she had bought the pills from Styron, according to the warrant. On March 3, Folks posted on the web forum Reddit, writing that she knew the pills she had taken were pressed with fentanyl, and that she was “nodding” in and out of consciousness.

Police were in the process of investigating Folks’ death when Cavanaugh overdosed, and detectives began looking into her overdose as well, the warrant said.

“At this time, it is not believed that Cavanaugh was supplied by Styron,” an officer wrote in the warrant.

Cavanaugh’s mother told police that the 20-year-old had been friends with Folks for about six years, and the two had previously dated. They stopped talking for a period after Folks went to rehab, but reconnected about three moths prior to the two women’s deaths, the warrant said.

Police reviewed Cavanaugh’s phone after her death, and found messages showing Cavanaugh accusing Styron, 21, of giving Folks the pills that led to her overdose, the warrant said.

“Whatever dude I’m sitting here hoping ur not next & u think people are having great things to say about you from her passing when people around you drop like flies,” Styron told Cavanaugh.

Cavanaugh died eight days later.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.