Heather Marie Rau

An Oak Ridge woman has been indicted on charges of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in a drug overdose reported in February.

The drug that allegedly caused the overdose of Wesley “Bud” Arnold on West Outer Drive on February 16 had been said to be heroin, according to affidavits filed earlier this year in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge.

Arnold was unconscious on a hallway floor, had a very weak pulse, and could not breathe on his own when an emergency medical crew responded to the overdose at about 3 p.m. February 16. Emergency personnel were able to revive Arnold by giving him a dose of Narcan, which is used to help people who overdose on opioid-based narcotics.

But indictments filed against Heather Marie Rau, 29, on August 1, said the illegal narcotic was not heroin but actually acrylfentanyl, a fentanyl analogue that is more powerful and dangerous than heroin.

Rau had advised Arnold not to “shoot it,” or inject it, because she knew that what she had given him could possibly kill him, according to the affidavits filed in February. Rau and another man, Willie Williams, had ingested the same drug on February 12, and Rau overdosed while Williams died, said the affidavits, filed by Oak Ridge Police Department Detective John Criswell. [Read more…]