Alleged drug dealer charged with woman’s death after she overdosed on fentanyl

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A suspected Kansas City-area drug dealer is charged with a woman’s death after she died of a fentanyl overdose in May.

Vincent Scarcello faces charges of second-degree murder and delivery of a controlled substance.

“This office has steered investigations toward dealers who cause such great harm in our community,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a news release. “This defendant’s conduct will be aggressively pursued through the criminal justice system.”

Police responded on May 3 to 53rd Street and Park Avenue on a welfare check.

When officers arrived, they found the victim deceased.

Doorbell footage captured Scarcello meeting with the woman around 4:51 p.m. in a black sedan outside the residence where she was found.

Just six minutes later, she was recorded going inside.

Court documents claim he came to sell her six “blues,” M-30 pills containing fentanyl.

When she went inside, the doorbell video showed her crushing a pill and snorting something off the countertop before walking to the bathroom and yelling.

She then entered the bedroom at 5:03 p.m. and was not seen after that.

During a search of the home, officers located a half-opened case of Narcan next to the woman as well as one white pill and three blue pills.

All pills tested positive for the presence of fentanyl, per court documents.

The Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the woman’s official cause of death to be an overdose of fentanyl, fluorofentanyl and ethanol intoxication.

Investigation of the incident led detectives to find Scarcello’s phone pinged in the area of 53rd and Park just before the woman died.

Additionally, when detectives did a computer check of Scarcello, the results revealed he was listed in a prior report with the victim where he was listed as one of her sources of fentanyl.

Ongoing surveillance of Scarcello’s residence captured him completing multiple hand-to-hand drug transactions, according to court documents.

Scarcello was taken into custody Tuesday morning and is being held on a $150,000 cash bond.

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