A 31-year-old North Fort Worth man is behind bars after police tied him to a deadly fentanyl overdose that killed a local resident in late May, according to authorities.
Fort Worth police say officers with the department’s fugitive unit arrested Curtis Mukanza today in connection with the death of 26-year-old Cristian Hernandez. Hernandez was found unresponsive on May 28 at a home in the 9200 block of Paluxy Drive, and the Tarrant County Medical Examiner later ruled his death an accident caused by fentanyl toxicity. Mukanza is being held on suspicion of murder and possession of a controlled substance, police said.
Investigators say they developed evidence linking Mukanza to the drugs involved in Hernandez’s death, though officials have not publicly laid out how they built the case, and court records were not immediately available, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Legal context
The case is unfolding under a relatively new Texas law that lets prosecutors treat delivery or manufacture of fentanyl that leads to a death as murder, a shift that has already reshaped overdose investigations across the state. Per the Texas Legislature record on HB 6, the measure, effective Sept. 1, 2023, directs medical examiners to mark fentanyl poisoning on death certificates and increases penalties tied to fentanyl offenses…