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PRICE — A Carbon County woman pleaded guilty to manslaughter Monday in connection with the drug overdose death of a South Jordan man.
The manslaughter charge against Alejandra "Ally" Dunn was reduced from a second-degree felony to a third-degree felony in exchange for her guilty plea, according to defense attorney David Allred.
Dunn, 27, also pleaded guilty in 7th District Court to a drug distribution charge that was reduced from a first-degree felony to a second-degree felony, Allred said.
Price police arrested the Helper woman in December 2013 after nearly five months of investigation into the Aug. 3, 2013, death of Anthony Joseph Compton. The 38-year-old South Jordan man had been living in Price at the time of his death.
Detectives said they found forensic evidence in Compton's home that implicated Dunn in the man's death. Dunn was interviewed and admitted to providing Compton with oxymorphone, a semi-synthetic prescription painkiller, according to charging documents.
On Monday, Carbon County prosecutor Jeremy Humes confirmed that police recovered a number of text messages between Dunn and several other people, including Compton, as part of their investigation. The messages provided a timeline of Dunn's actions before, during and after Compton's overdose and subsequent death, Humes said.
The (text messages) in this case were very helpful in that we had a lot of the specifics.
–Jeremy Humes, prosecutor
"A case like this is very fact specific," he said. "The (text messages) in this case were very helpful in that we had a lot of the specifics."
Dunn is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 17. She faces up to 15 years in prison on the drug distribution charge and up to five years in prison for the manslaughter charge. As part of the plea deal, however, the prosecution and defense have agreed to recommend that she serve six months in jail.
