photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Sept. 4, 2024.

A 24-year-old man has been ordered to stand trial in the drug overdose of a young Lawrence mother.

The woman’s husband testified Thursday that he returned from his night shift on March 8 and found his wife, Marisa Greene, unresponsive with their 1-year-old daughter crawling around her body.

“I came home to my wife on the ground dead,” Brandon Greene told Judge Amy Hanley. He said he administered two to three doses of Narcan, an opioid overdose reversal drug, and performed CPR. But when medics arrived they concluded that Marisa had already been dead for some time, he said.

The defendant, Melvin Lewis III, is accused of selling $40 worth of fentanyl to Marisa within hours of her death. He is facing one count of distribution of a controlled substance causing death and one count of using a phone to conduct a felony drug deal.

A forensic pathologist, Alfonzo Halfin, testified Thursday that Greene had died of fentanyl intoxication.

Brandon Greene told the court that he and his wife were recovering drug addicts and had used fentanyl in the past. He had been clean “for quite a while,” he said, and thought that she had been too. But when he looked around the apartment that morning, he saw white powder, presumably fentanyl, plus straws and aluminum foil to facilitate smoking the drug.

Brandon said he didn’t know Lewis personally, but that Marisa had described him as a young Black man from Missouri who drove a BMW. Lewis said he had only seen him vaguely, sitting behind the tinted windows of his car.

Brandon gave police permission to search the apartment and Marisa’s phone, which provided a trove of evidence leading to Lewis, Lawrence Police Detective Kimberlee Nicholson testified.

A baggie with powder in the couple’s bathroom tested positive for fentanyl, Nicholson said, and evidence on Marisa’s phone showed a $40 Cash App transaction linked to an account discovered to be Lewis’, which police accessed via a search warrant.

The search warrant turned up other information, such as Lewis’ driver’s license and Social Security number and the fact that a dark-colored BMW was registered to him.

When Cash App is open on a person’s phone, the person’s location is recorded, and Nicholson was able to piece together location data from Marisa’s phone showing that she went from Lawrence to a Kansas City, Missouri, address – linked to Lewis – and back shortly before her death.

Lewis’ attorney, Kirk Redmond, attempted to cast doubt on the state’s narrative by asking Nicholson about another transaction two days prior, on March 6, between Marisa and a different person, but Nicholson said she didn’t know who that person was.

He also questioned whether the amount of fentanyl found in Marisa’s body was enough to kill her. The pathologist said it was a “significant” and deadly amount, especially for an addict in remission or a new user.

Redmond additionally questioned whether Klonopin pills that Marisa had reportedly taken played a role in her death. Brandon had testified that Marisa had texted him that night that she might have “taken too many” Klonopin. The pathologist responded that the toxicology results did not indicate that.

Redmond argued that the state, represented by prosecutor Eve Kemple, had not met its burden of proving probable cause at the preliminary hearing because the toxicologist did not testify.

“The toxicologist needs to come say ‘I found fentanyl in the body,’ and that didn’t happen,” Redmond said.

Judge Hanley, noting the lack of a timely objection by Redmond, rejected his interpretation of Kansas law, noting that autopsy reports can come into evidence and be considered by the court at such hearings without any expert testifying about them at all.

Following Thursday’s hearing, Lewis pleaded not guilty, and his trial date was set for April 5. He is currently in the custody of the Douglas County jail on a bond of $150,000.

Marisa’s obituary describes her as a stay-at-home mom who was devoted to her family. A “beautiful soul and generous spirit,” she was an “enthusiastic metalhead” who loved local concerts and sharing her love for music.

“Her political convictions were strong and deeply rooted; she was a fervent advocate for immigrant rights,” the obituary said.