Man Who Left Best Friend To Die At Bensalem Hotel Gets Prison

A heroin dealer who left his best friend to die in a Bensalem hotel room has been sentenced to prison, authorities announced. Robert Sykes, 26, of Trevose will serve six to 15 years in state prison in connection with the December 2016 overdose death of his friend, Matthew Dunn.

Dunn was found dead of an overdose inside a room Sykes had rented at the Knights Inn in Bensalem. He had turned 27 two days before, and the pair were celebrating the occasion, according to information from the Bucks County District Attorney's office.

Dunn's fatal overdose happened after he snorted fentanyl that Sykes had given him, the DA's office said.

Sykes and a third man who was in the room tried unsuccessfully to revive Dunn with CPR, but did not call 911. They left the hotel around 1 p.m., and Sykes was arrested with 81 packets of fentanyl still stuffed inside his pants less than a mile from the hotel room.

Sykes pleaded guilty to charges of possession with intent to deliver fentanyl, delivery of fentanyl, involuntary manslaughter, recklessly endangering another person and illegal use of a communication facility.

“You were in a hotel room with two of your friends, and you let one of them die. It’s really that simple,” Bucks County Common Pleas Court Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. told Sykes during his sentencing. “You left an ill, overdosing, dying young man alone in a hotel room, when all you had to do was call 911.”

Authorities with the District Attorney's office said Sykes used his phone to record his efforts to revive Dunn, apparently to show his friend afterward. Coughing, slapping and vomiting sounds can be heard on the recording, according to the DA's office.

In the recordings, which were taken more than five hours before Sykes left the room, he is heard saying, “Dunn [expletive] dog. It two days from your [expletive] birthday and this what I do for you. You’re about to die … ”

Sykes was not charged with the more serious crime of drug delivery resulting in death because an autopsy showed that Dunn had multiple drugs, including toxic levels of cocaine, in his system when he died, authorities said.

“He was my best friend,” Sykes said during sentencing. “I want to apologize and say how sorry I am. I never meant for any of this to happen. We had planned for weeks to meet up for his birthday and things just got out of hand. I didn’t do what I should have done … I was there for hours, trying to bring him back. I barely remember that night. Everything that Matt was on that night, I was on, too.”

Sykes told authorities that he didn’t call 911 because he had drugs on him, and also because Dunn was on probation, having recently been released from prison.

The judge sentenced Sykes to serve five to 10 year for possession with intent to deliver fentanyl, a consecutive one to five years for involuntary manslaughter, and a concurrent 10 years of probation for the delivery of fentanyl to Dunn.

Image via Bucks County DA's office