Opioids killed a Pasco teen. A 19-year-old is charged with selling the deadly dose

A 17-year-old boy was just one day away from checking into rehab when he overdosed on a powerful pain pill.

Paramedics tried to revive him but their efforts were futile.

Joshua D. Lovejoy died July 21 in his family’s west Pasco home.

Six months later, prosecutors have charged an older Pasco teen with dealing the drugs that killed Lovejoy.

Luis F. Martinez, 19, allegedly sold three fentanyl pills for $90 to Lovejoy.

Martinez initially denied selling pills to the younger teen, then changed his story when Pasco detectives confronted him with text messages between the two, according to court documents.

He said Lovejoy stopped by a Pasco apartment and picked up the pills the day before his death, documents said.

Investigators say that matches Lovejoy’s cellphone activity.

Martinez was arrested this week on a warrant for the felony charge of controlled substance homicide.

Bail was set at $50,000 during his first appearance in Franklin County Superior Court. He is scheduled back in court Jan. 21 to enter a plea to the charge.

Teen found unresponsive

Lovejoy was a high school student who first attended Chiawana, then switched to New Horizons his junior year. He was on the Chiawana Lacrosse Club team and had planned to play in the upcoming season, according to his obituary.

The teen, who spent almost all of his life in Pasco, was described as funny, witty, kind and intelligent with a heart for helping foster kids through Royal Family KIDS-Pasco.

A GoFundMe account raised nearly $4,000 goal to help his parents, Lisa and Dan Lovejoy.

Police and paramedics were called to the family’s home shortly before 8 a.m. July 21 for a report that someone had stopped breathing. Joshua Lovejoy was unresponsive when his mother found him.

His parents told police the teen had an opioid addiction and in the past had stolen medications and money for drugs, and was scheduled to check into a rehabilitation center July 22, court documents said.

The autopsy confirmed “signs and symptoms consistent with an opioid overdose,” and he had fentanyl and THC — the main psychoactive compound in marijuana — in his system when he died, documents show.

The forensic pathologist later determined the fentanyl contributed to the teen’s death. He was one of 13 opioid-related deaths in Benton and Franklin counties last year.

Dealer says he doubled price

A relative gave police Martinez’s name as his alleged dealer of pain pills.

And detectives learned that Lovejoy asked a friend driving him home July 20 to stop by a west Pasco apartment complex. Investigators got location data for Lovejoy’s phone and the GPS coordinates confirmed the friend’s story, court documents said.

Fourteen minutes earlier, Lovejoy had sent a text message to Martinez saying, “Aye lemme pick it up (right now).” That was part of a series of texts between the two with Lovejoy wanting to know when Martinez had something for him, documents show.

Also discovered on Lovejoy’s phone during the investigation was a brief video of the teen talking about the difficulty in getting his hands on “perks,” or pain pills, July 20, with him singing, “I finally got them.”

Martinez told investigators in late August that he and Lovejoy had been smoking marijuana in Chiawana Park on July 19 when one of Lovejoy’s friends picked them up, court documents said.

Martinez said he bought three pills from the friend for $40, then turned around and sold them the next day to Lovejoy for double the price, documents said.