Perry Hall Man Not Guilty In Drug Case: Report

A Perry Hall man was recently acquitted in the death of his girlfriend, who lived in Pennsylvania and died from an overdose. He was reportedly with her when she purchased heroin in Baltimore and was charged as the state of Pennsylvania attempted to stave off opioid use by prosecuting those involved in overdose deaths.

Robert Lee Martin III, 29, of Perry Hall, lost his girlfriend in 2015. He was charged with drug delivery resulting in death and involuntary manslaughter while he was undergoing treatment for addiction in 2017 out of state, according to the York Daily Record.

Last month, a jury acquitted him in what the newspaper said was the first case of its kind that York County prosecutors lost since 2013 when Pennsylvania began aggressively targeting providers of drugs connected to fatal overdoses.

According to the York Dispatch, in December 2015 the Perry Hall man gave $40 to his girlfriend — Bryanna Shanahan, 25, a mother of two living in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania — and contacted a drug dealer for her; at the time, both Martin and Shanahan were struggling with addiction, the newspaper reported, and they had plans to marry after getting clean.

Martin's attorney said that Shanahan had gotten drugs from three other people in the days before she died, which was Dec. 16, 2015; her death was caused by a fatal combinationof fentanyl and Zoloft, according to the York Dispatch.

A jury reportedly decided in less than an hour to find Martin not guilty of the charges of drug delivery resulting in death and involuntary manslaughter.

"I beat the case, but I didn't win," Martin told the York Daily Record afterward. "My heart breaks for Bryanna's family..."

Read more about the case from the York Dispatch and the York Daily Record.

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