Even if his mother did sell his friend the pills that led to the overdose of the 21-year-old, Matthew Fugate knows she is not capable of murder.
Fugate’s mother, Almeda Sullivan, faces one count of in the death of Carter Higdon, who was found dead in the basement of Sullivan’s Centennial home in October 2011. She also is accused of providing drugs to three other young adults who fatally overdosed in 2008. One died in an upstairs bedroom of her home.
But Fugate, who at 33 is Sullivan’s oldest of four children, defended his mother during an interview with The Denver Post and said she did everything she could to care for the four victims.
Fugate, a recovering addict himself, said all four were using drugs . Frustrated with the allegations against his mother, he says he cannot “comprehend how someone can be charged with first-degree murder for selling drugs.”
“I think there is a lot of street-level drug dealers out there,” Fugate said. “They haven’t been charged with murder.”
Sullivan allegedly provided Opana pain pills to Higdon. Opana is a narcotic painkiller similar to oxycodone.
In January 2008, Sierra Renee Cochran, 19, died at Sullivan’s home after she accidently overdosed. Nine months later, 28-year-old Lindsey Jo Saidy and Martynas “Tez” Simanskas, 20, died after overdosing on prescription medications.
More than three years after the third death, Higdon died in Sullivan’s basement. All four victims had Opana in their system.
During Sullivan’s preliminary hearing, prosecutors described the 51-year-old as a who pushed drugs onto people and taught them how to grind and snort the powerful pills. Sullivan had no regrets when people who bought drugs from her died, prosecutors said.
But the woman prosecutors described in court is a stranger to Fugate, who said his mother is a wonderful, kindhearted woman who tried to provide a safe place for people. She would give “anyone who needed it” a place to sleep, shower and eat and would lend her car to those who asked, Fugate said.
“She’s not some kind of animal that they are portraying she is,” Fugate said.
He and Higdon were close friends, but their strongest connection was found through using drugs, Fugate said. Higdon died while Fugate was serving a prison sentence in Tennessee for theft.
He didn’t know about his mother’s drug use until shortly before Higdon’s death, he said.
Arguments by Sullivan’s attorneys have echoed Fugate’s concerns.
Her defense attorneys say she never forced any of the victims to take the pills. Higdon and the other victims used and sold drugs before meeting Sullivan.
Prosecutors, however, do not have to prove that Sullivan intended to kill Higdon. The charge only requires prosecutors to prove Sullivan knew her actions created a strong risk of death and she continued anyway.
Sullivan remained indifferent to the first three deaths and should have known better when she provided Higdon with the drugs, they said.
But Fugate says each death weighed heavily on his mother.
“If I had a dictionary right here, I would look up the definition of first-degree murder and you couldn’t find that example in there,” Fugate said.
In August, a judge found there was to continue to trial. Sullivan is expected to enter a plea on Oct. 27.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jsteffendp
