A 12-year-old girl and two other teens bought a fentanyl pill in November 2020, then recorded video of her snorting some of the crushed pill, California prosecutors say.
She passed out and died a short time later after being taken to a hospital, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office reported in a Jan. 25 news release.
Now the 16-year-old boy who sold her the pill faces a murder charge in her death, the office said. He was arrested Tuesday by San Jose police.
“After thousands of deaths, everyone should know that fentanyl is a deadly poison,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement.
The 12-year-old was the “youngest person to fatally overdose” in Santa Clara County in 2020, the release said. Her name was not released.
Police found public-service warnings about the dangers of fentanyl on the 16-year-old’s Google Photos account from before the 12-year-old’s death, prosecutors said.
The 16-year-old, whose identity was not released, is the second to be charged with murder in the county after a fatal overdose. A San Jose man who sold an opioid on Snapchat to a Santa Clara 18-year-old in 2020 also faces a murder charge, the release said.