Stanislaus County man is charged with murder after Ceres woman dies from fentanyl poisoning
Stanislaus County prosecutors have filed murder charges in the fentanyl poisoning death of a woman in Ceres.
George Foster Keene, 27, is facing second-degree murder charges after the 24-year-old woman died from illegal fentanyl in Ceres on Aug. 17, the District Attorney’s office said in an announcement.
The criminal complaint identified the victim as Bethany Borges of Ceres.
Ceres police and district attorney investigators conducted a joint investigation into the woman’s death.
“This investigation is representative of our continuing and combined efforts to combat the fentanyl epidemic affecting our community,” District Attorney Jeff Laugero said in the announcement.
Keene is charged with one count of “willfully and unlawfully” selling the controlled substance to Borges. Another count charges that Keene did “unlawfully and with malice” murder Borges.
Wendell Emerson, chief prosecutor for the DA’s office, said details of the alleged homicide are not being released yet, as the case is still under investigation. A conviction on a second-degree murder charge may result in a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.
Keene was booked in jail Sept. 15 and has an initial court date scheduled for Dec. 11. Bail is set at $2 million.
Borges lost her sister, Destiny, who was killed in 2017 when a large tree fell on the 20-year-old woman at Yosemite National Park, according to a Modesto Bee story. Friends and relatives have been posting sympathetic messages about Borges’ mother losing both of her daughters.
“I am now a mother with no living children,” wrote Summer Warthan in a recent Facebook post about her daughter Bethany’s death. “Every day someone’s child is being poisoned and losing their life. It needs to stop. These people need to be punished.”
Warthan’s post asks people to sign a Change.org petition to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. Three Republican congressman have made that proposal a centerpiece of what they call the Stop Our Scourge Act.
Like most other counties, Stanislaus has been gripped by the national fentanyl crisis, recording 128 deaths due to the highly potent synthetic opioid drug in 2022, an increase from 103 in 2021 and 71 in 2020. State data on the opioid crisis has shown Stanislaus County has a higher fatal overdose rate than the statewide rate, 19.6 per 100,000 population compared to 18 per 100,000 in California.
As of July, 47 of the 72 overdose deaths in the county this year were caused by fentanyl use, according to preliminary county numbers.
Deputy District Attorney Patrick Hogan is prosecuting the Ceres case. In an interview in March, Hogan talked about the difficulty of bringing murder charges, under California law, against dealers who illegally sell the highly lethal drug.
Hogan said the court requires evidence the defendant knew that selling fentanyl would result in the individual’s death.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says that fentanyl, often sold illegally as counterfeit pills, is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. Only 2 milligrams of fentanyl is considered a potentially lethal dose.
This story was originally published September 21, 2023 at 12:39 PM.
