BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Bellingham Police arrested a Bellingham woman under suspicion of controlled substance homicide after 2 men died about 6 weeks apart at her residence in the 2100 block of Franklin Street.
According to an probable cause affidavit prepared by Bellingham Police Department and submitted into Whatcom County Superior Court by prosecutors, police officers responded to the Franklin Street address on February 22nd after a 37-year-old male was discovered dead. The Whatcom County Medical Examiner determined cause of death was respiratory failure secondary to heroin and methamphetamine usage.
A woman at the residence told investigators she and the male, her boyfriend, had used heroin before he lost consciousness and died.
On April 8th, police returned to the same residence after another male died there. They spoke with the same woman who said they had used heroin after which she fell asleep. She woke to find the 32-year-old man lying unconscious in the front yard.
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Click for more informationBellingham Fire Department personnel made efforts to resuscitate the man but he was ultimately declared dead at the scene.
The woman surrendered a “drug kit” to investigators containing needles, containers with heroin residue and 2 vials of injectable Narcan. Narcan is a trade name for naloxone which is FDA approved for treating opioid overdose.
She told investigators that before the latest incident, she and the male had been drinking alcohol and she offered him some heroin and he smoked it. She injected some and showed him how he could do the same. She handed him a needle containing heroin and he injected it. It was at this point, she told investigators, that she went to sleep.
The Whatcom County Medical Examiner determined the 32-year-old’s cause of death as opiate and ethanol intoxication (overdose of heroin and alcohol).
Investigators determined the woman, identified as Mia Ann Rawski, age 33, was aware of the potentially fatal risk of using heroin given the presence of Narcan in her drug kit and having witnessed the death of the her boyfriend in February. But she still provided 2 different amounts of heroin to the man in April which was later determined to have caused his death.
An arrest warrant for Rawski was issued on October 6th and she was booked into Whatcom County Jail yesterday, November 2nd, by Bellingham Police charged with suspicion of controlled substance homicide, a Class B felony. She remained in custody without bail as of November 3rd.