John McCarthy
HIALEAH — A Florida man faces a first-degree murder charge after his wife overdosed on cocaine that police say he supplied her earlier this year.
The woman died at Palmetto General Hospital on June 1, four days after Hialeah Fire Rescue paramedics found her unresponsive at the home she shared with her husband at the 3500 block of West 89th Place in Hialeah.
Hialeah police officers found a small plastic bag with a white powdery substance that later tested positive for cocaine, per the arrest report for 37-year-old Rafael Lujan. He was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Tuesday.
Officers interviewed Lujan, but what he told them was redacted from the arrest report. After the woman died, the Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy and concluded her death was caused by an acute combination of cocaine and alcohol, the arrest report shows.
Police did not name the woman, but the report reveals detectives said Lujan’s “unlawful distribution of the cocaine to the victim caused her death.”
Along with the murder charge, Lujan was also booked on cocaine possession. A judge had not set bond as of Wednesday afternoon.
Information on his legal counsel was not immediately available.
By DAVID GOODHUE/Miami Herald
David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Before joining the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.
