Former City Employee Pleads Not Guilty In Girlfriend's Overdose Death

LONG BEACH, CA — A former Long Beach city employee who allegedly told police he supplied drugs to a woman he was dating pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge stemming from her July 2020 death.

Jarid Nakamura, 35, was arrested March 6 on suspicion of murder in the death of Sokly Sar.

Nakamura went to the Long Beach Police Department's headquarters that day, asked to speak with homicide detectives and told them that he gave narcotics to the 36-year-old woman he had been dating and was responsible for her death, according to a statement released last week by the department.

Police said there was limited evidence to believe that a crime occurred when officers were sent July 6, 2020, to the 1700 block of Cedar Avenue to assist the Long Beach Fire Department.

Police noted that the coroner's office had ruled the woman's death as an "accidental overdose of methamphetamine and alcohol."

Nakamura was a city employee at the time of the woman's death, according to police.
He has remained behind bars on $2 million bail since his arrest.

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