Feb 22, 2024 By Mike Jones 4 min read

A West Virginia woman, who is accused of selling a deadly batch of fentanyl to a man in Wheeling before he traveled to Washington County where he ingested the drugs and died, was ordered to stand trial on all charges in connection with his death nearly a year ago.

Jenna Marie Hastings is accused of selling several stamp bags of fentanyl to 32-year-old Nathan Wright in the early hours of March 26 when they met in the Elm Grove neighborhood in Wheeling.

Shortly before the alleged drug deal, Wright’s fiancée, Samantha Haynes, had noticed he was texting with Hastings, prompting her to attempt to stop him from going to the Jones Street residence to make the exchange.

“I started trying to convince him not to go down there,” said Haynes, who testified during Wednesday’s preliminary hearing for Hastings in Washington County Central Court. “I started fighting with him. I started begging him.”

But Haynes said she couldn’t stop Wright from leaving the house they shared with his father, Frank Lloyd Wright, so she woke up the elder Wright to try to intervene. Frank Wright testified he drove around the neighborhood looking for his son and eventually saw him get out of a car with two other people, including Hastings, who was in the driver’s seat.

“He looked right at me,” Wright said.

“Oh (expletive)! Pops,” Wright recalled his son saying to him.

“I told him he couldn’t come back to the house with dope,” Wright testified to what he told his son.

He said his son then claimed to have “tossed” the drugs away, which the father believed to be true. But Wright still told his son he had to go to rehab or find a new place to stay.

Haynes eventually picked up the younger Wright in her car before agreeing to drive him to a friend’s house on Carl Avenue in North Strabane Township near Eighty Four “to try to get him clean” and away from the environment in Wheeling. Haynes then left for work, but when she returned several hours later, she found Wright slumped over on the futon with stamp bags around him.

“I went over to him to try and wake him up,” Haynes testified.

She called 911 and went to retrieve naloxone from her vehicle, but soon realized it was too late. Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco testified that an autopsy later revealed Wright died of fentanyl intoxication.

North Strabane police Officer Christopher Wilson said that when he arrived at the scene, he found Wright dead on the futon with five stamp bags and a straw on the table, along with his cellphone. Wilson testified he later was able to extract Facebook messages between Wright and Hastings showing the two discussed a drug deal in the early hours of March 26.

Wheeling police Detective Erick Burke, who is also a member of the Ohio Valley Drug Task Force, testified at the hearing that authorities in West Virginia interviewed Hastings on April 6 and 7. At first, she admitted to selling drugs to Wright on March 26, Burke testified, but she recanted the following day and told investigators that the deal went through another person because she thought she was “being set up” by Wright.

Wilson said they found a “CashApp” transaction from Wright to Hastings on March 16 and then a second transfer from Wright to another man on March 26. It’s not clear if the other person mentioned in testimony as facilitating the drug deal is facing charges in West Virginia or could face prosecution in Washington County.

Defense attorney Amy Levenson Jones questioned why her client was charged if another person was apparently involved in selling Wright the deadly drugs.

“What’s lacking here is that Ms. Hasting delivered the drugs,” Levenson Jones said of the evidence presented at the hearing.

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Wheeler disagreed, saying there were numerous text message exchanges, financial transactions and witness testimony to show Hastings was involved.

“I would say the text messages on the cellphone show direct evidence of Ms. Hastings dealing the drugs,” Wheeler said.

After hearing testimony for more than an hour, District Judge James Saieva Jr. ordered Hastings to stand trial on all charges, which include felony counts of drug delivery resulting in death, possession with intent to deliver, criminal use of a communication facility and related conspiracy charges.

Hastings, 37, of Wheeling, had been held in custody in West Virginia since April before North Strabane police charged her on Dec. 13. She was extradited to Pennsylvania on Feb. 1 to face arraignment on the charges in Washington County, and is currently being held in the Washington County jail on $250,000 bond.