FEBRUARY 20, 2025|
Photo – Marty L Ervine – Bigfoot99 file photo
A Washington-state man accused of supplying a fatal dose of Fentanyl to a Hanna resident who died from taking the drug has been sentenced to serve 10 years in prison.
Last August, 35-year-old Marty Laroy Ervine, of Kitsap County, Washington was charged with three felonies in Carbon County District Court: two counts of Delivery of a Controlled Substance, specifically fentanyl, and one count of Manslaughter.
Ervine is accused of sending fentanyl through the mail to Hanna resident Christopher Lansing. In February of 2023, Lansing was found dead in his home. A coroner’s report showed that the Hanna man had nine times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his bloodstream.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation tracked text messages between Ervine and Lansing back to Kitsap County, Washington. On March 3rd, 2023, Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies found Ervine passed out in the front seat of a truck registered to Lansing. Ervine allegedly told the deputy that Lansing sold the truck to him before moving to Wyoming.
Text messages recovered from the dead man’s phone revealed that Lansing appears to have given the vehicle to Ervine in exchange for drugs.
A search of the truck that was included in the drug deal yielded 75 fentanyl tablets, over 35 grams of Methamphetamine, burglary tools, as well as stolen IDs and debit cards.
Small baggies with alien faces on them were also found during the search.
Roughly ten days before Lansing’s death in 2023, a baggie with an alien face printed on it was found at the scene of the fentanyl overdose deaths of Saratoga residents Cassidee Wingo and Richard Heap. An employee of a local restaurant, the Saratoga Sandwich Company was charged, and later acquitted, of two counts of involuntary manslaughter related to the deaths.
Separately, Ervine was arrested in Washington state by the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect was charged with theft, delivery of a controlled substance, possession of another’s identification, as well as possession of motor vehicle theft tools.
Last July, Erine was extradited to Carbon County to face charges related to the death of the Hanna man. The suspect pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In October, the Carbon County Prosecutors Office reduced the Manslaughter charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, to Criminally Negligent Manslaughter, with a maximum sentence of one year. The two counts of Delivery of a Controlled Substance, specifically fentanyl, remained the same.
At the same time, Carbon County Prosecutor Sarah Chavez Harkins offered Ervine a plea deal. Instead of facing two counts of Delivery of a Controlled Substance, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years, Prosecutor Harkins proposed charging Ervine with just one count. She would also request that Judge Dawnessa Snyder impose a sentence of no more than 10 years. The Criminally Negligent Manslaughter charge would remain.
Ervine and his attorney, Public Defender Patty Bennett, accepted the plea deal.
On January 3rd of this year, Ervine pleaded guilty to Delivery of Fentanyl and Criminally Negligent Manslaughter and was sentenced to between 10 and 11 years in prison, with one year of credit for time already served.
