A Cherokee County man who provided the lethal drugs connected to the overdose deaths of two sisters just eight months apart pleaded guilty to multiple charges this month, officials said.
Michael Dalton Waters, 23, of Woodstock, pleaded guilty to counts of involuntary manslaughter and distribution of controlled substances Aug. 7, Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit District Attorney Susan Treadaway said in a statement. The charges were related to the death of 20-year-old Talley Power in May 2021.
Waters also provided the drugs that led to the overdose death of 19-year-old Baylee Power, Talley’s sister, in September 2020, Treadaway said. Baylee Power’s death was ruled accidental and Waters was not charged.
Waters received an eight-year prison sentence followed by 32 years of supervised release, Treadaway said.
According to prosecutors, Waters crushed up a homemade pill into a powder and gave it to Talley Power and another 19-year-old on the evening of May 23, 2021. Waters told the women the pill was a Percocet, a brand-name opioid painkiller, instead of revealing that it was an illegal, homemade pill.
After the two women ingested the pills, Waters went with them back to Power’s home, Treadaway said. The following morning, Power was found unresponsive and later pronounced dead. A toxicology report showed that she had a combination of fentanyl and tramadol in her system, two powerful narcotic painkillers.
Treadaway called Waters’ sharing of a homemade pressed pill “especially reckless.”
“This defendant made a choice to give Talley Power drugs containing fentanyl. That decision cost her life,” Treadaway said.
In addition to his 40-year sentence, Waters will be required to avoid alcohol and drugs and will receive treatment for mental health and substance abuse, Treadaway said. He has also been ordered to have no contact with certain members of the Power sisters’ family.
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