Another Fentanyl Death Leads To Homicide Arrest In RivCo

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — A man suspected of supplying a lethal dose of fentanyl to a 32-year-old Moreno Valley woman was being held Thursday on $1 million bail.

Brandon Michael Shino of Jurupa Valley was arrested and booked into the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside Wednesday on suspicion of murder.

Shino allegedly provided the fentanyl pills that killed Brittany Locke, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Sgt. Ryan Marcuse said that patrol deputies were called to the victim's residence in the 23000 block of Sunnymead Boulevard on the afternoon of Jan. 4 and found her dead.

An autopsy revealed she was the "victim of fentanyl poisoning," Marcuse said.

Detectives developed leads that ultimately pointed to Shino as the alleged supplier, the sergeant said.

Background information on the suspect was unavailable.

Well over a dozen people have been charged with murder in Riverside County for fentanyl poisoning deaths.

The synthetic opioid is manufactured in overseas labs, including in China, and according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, it's smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by drug cartels. The substance is 80-100 times more potent than morphine and is a popular additive, mixed into any number of narcotics and pharmaceuticals. The ingestion of only two milligrams can be fatal.

In 2021, there were nearly 400 fentanyl-induced deaths countywide, representing a 200-fold increase from 2016, when public safety officials say only two such fatalities were documented.

Statistics published in May by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed there were roughly 108,000 fatal drug overdoses in 2021, and fentanyl poisoning accounted for over 80,000 of them.