Milwaukee man charged in Concordia student's overdose death
A 23-year-old Milwaukee man was charged Thursday in the overdose death of a Concordia University student found dead in his dorm room last fall.
Caleb Ford, 18, of Waukesha was a freshman at the Mequon college. He was discovered Oct. 1 by his roommate, the morning after the roommate, Ford and two other students had purchased drugs off campus in a deal Ford had arranged.
On Thursday, Ozaukee County prosecutors charged Shuntaye C. Crenshaw with first-degree reckless homicide, saying he sold Ford the heroin that killed him. He is being held at the Ozaukee County Jail and is scheduled for a bail hearing Friday.
According to the complaint:
Ford, who had a history of drug abuse, told the three friends that he could buy them all drugs from a dealer he knew. Later on the evening of Sept. 30, he said he had made the arrangements.
Ford and three others drove off campus to a dead end street off Lake Shore Drive, south of campus, where they purchased $200 worth of marijuana, concentrated marijuana oil, pills and some heroin.
Ford's friends consumed their drugs in a nearby restaurant parking lot, while Ford — the only one with heroin — returned to his room at Wittenberg Hall.
Jacob Galloway told police he went to his room about 2:30 a.m., and saw Ford with dried blood on his nose and cheeks but left him alone and spent the night in another dorm room.
Galloway returned to his room at 7:15 a.m. and found Ford slumped over a desk, couldn't wake him, and then called the other friend to come there before finally notifying campus security.
When police arrived, they found several signs of heroin use, including a CVS receipt for the purchase of 10 syringes. Heroin residue was found in a pen cap and on the desk.
Coincidentally, Mequon police had stopped Crenshaw as he was speeding south on Lake Shore Drive at 1:42 a.m. He was ticketed for driving while suspended and speeding. His passenger, Cedric McCarty, was cited for giving a different name. Police got cellphone numbers from both men.
Last month, police set up an undercover drug buy from Crenshaw in Mequon. He arrived with McCarty and sold the informant supposed heroin for $425, though some of the substance turned out to be counterfeit. Crenshaw faces a separate drug felony related to that incident.
McCarty later identified Ford, in a photo, as the person Crenshaw had sold drugs to on Sept. 30.
Galloway, 19, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the two other students, Lucas Eaton, 19, of Lockport, Ill., and Zachary Haen, 18, of Kaukauna, were charged in December with misdemeanor counts of obstructing an officer and possession of marijuana.
Felony counts of possessing GHB, or Ecstasy, replaced those counts last month. All three are scheduled to make initial court appearances March 9.
Concordia spokeswoman Gretchen Jameson said Galloway, Eaton and Haen are no longer students at the university.
She said while drug abuse is not a particularly bad problem at Concordia, no university is immune.
"It's a growing issue in the county though, and Concordia University wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with the community to face it," she said.
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