photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured in May of 2023. The center houses the Douglas County District Court and other county services.

Before dying of an overdose from a fentanyl-laced pill, a Lawrence man told a friend the pills he purchased made him sick but that he couldn’t find other drugs to satisfy his addiction, according to a recently released affidavit in support of the arrest of a woman accused of selling the pills.

The woman, Terriana Audry Atkinson, 26, of Lawrence, is charged in Douglas County District Court with one count of distributing a substance causing death, according to charging documents. The incident is alleged to have occurred on or about Dec. 2, 2022, one week before the victim, Cameron Bricker, 26, of Lawrence, was found dead on Dec. 9, 2022, at his apartment at 1401 E. 24th St. According to his autopsy, Bricker died of fentanyl and ethanol intoxication.

According to a heavily redacted police affidavit in support of Atkinson’s arrest, Bricker was in contact with someone on Snapchat, later identified as Atkinson, the afternoon of Dec. 2, 2022, who offered him “30s,” a slang term for Oxycodone pills, according to the affidavit.

“I got 30s and not the 15s like last time,” a message to Bricker read. “It’s 15 a pop.”

An arrest affidavit is a sworn document detailing the probable cause behind a person’s arrest. Allegations contained in affidavits have not been proved in court.

Bricker asked whom he should send the money to using CashApp, then sent $45 to Atkinson, and met her in the parking lot of his apartment building, according to the affidavit. A Lawrence police detective later found pictures taken that night of three pills, believed to have been the pills purchased, on Bricker’s phone.

Later that night, according to the affidavit, Bricker messaged another person telling them that he had purchased the pills and that the pills had made him very “sick,” messaging “they so strong bruh.” The person he texted with warned him of the dangers of taking fentanyl-laced pills, telling him not to overdose and “there’s no coming back from that.”

Bricker told the person he would not take any more of the pills that made him sick and that just in case he was “strapped” with Narcan, an over-the-counter drug that can reverse or slow the effects of an opioid overdose.

The next day, according to the affidavit, Bricker contacted another dealer who had some Valium, Percocet, and Xanax to sell Bricker but by Dec. 7, 2022, the two had not met to finish the deal, and Bricker told the dealer that “in the meantime imma have to take these (expletive) Oxys.”

Bricker made his last phone call just after midnight on Dec. 8, 2022, and he was found dead on Dec. 9, 2022 at 7:21 p.m., according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, police identified Atkinson as the suspected seller after Lawrence police issued warrants to CashApp and SnapChat and connected her to the accounts Bricker was communicating with to purchase the pills believed to have killed him. Police recovered a pill, cut into three pieces, that Atkinson is alleged to have sold to Bricker and that later tested positive for fentanyl, according to the affidavit.

Atkinson was arrested on suspicion of the crime on Nov. 1, 2023, and public defender Angelo Panas argued that Atkinson should be granted an own-recognizance bond, meaning she would not be required to pay any money to be released from jail. Panas said that Atkinson was 6 months pregnant and had a 1-year-old child at home whom she needed to care for, as the Journal-World reported.

The state, represented by Assistant District Attorney Brian Deiter, asked the court to issue a $100,000 cash or surety bond to keep Atkinson off the streets because the state believed Atkinson had continued to sell the fentanyl-laced drugs in Lawrence since Bricker’s death.

Judge Sally Pokorny said she granted Atkinson a $100,000 own-recognizance bond to remain consistent with similar cases where defendants were granted own-recognizance bonds, but she ordered Atkinson to house arrest and GPS monitoring with permission for work release. Pokorny said if Atkinson were to be convicted on the charge, she would face a minimum of 147 months, or over 12 years, in prison. Atkinson is next scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 14, 2024, for a status conference.