01/27/2007

Convicted dealer's wife dies of drug overdose in Boyne City

By CRAIG McCOOL

mccoolrecordeagle@sbcglobal.net

BOYNE CITY — Police are investigating the fatal overdose of a woman who was married to a notorious drug dealer who's serving time in federal prison.

Roberta Jane King, 46, recently was found dead in her Boyne City home. Police said she was married to Robert Lee King, who is serving a 24-year federal prison sentence for his role in a pair of fatal overdoses in Charlevoix and Cheboygan counties.

An East Jordan man faces drug delivery charges because of a note found along with Roberta King's body on Jan. 14.

Arrested was the note's alleged author, Christopher Hefty, 27, who police said admitted giving King several prescription pills earlier that week. He faces a felony drug delivery charge punishable by up to four years in prison, but is not charged with her death.

A Boyne City officer who discovered her body "observed an empty prescription bottle with a note nearby which stated, 'Bert, left you $20 for 4. (You were passed out). … p.s. Gave you some Klonopin too,'” according to court records.

Charlevoix County prosecutor John Jarema said Klonopin, a mild sedative classified as a schedule four drug, does not qualify under fatal overdose statues that call for schedule one or two drugs.

And though investigators are awaiting toxicology results, Jarema believes there was far more than Klonopin in King's system, based on what police recovered from the home.

"I don't think Klonopin is the drug that probably killed her,” he said. "There was methadone there, oxycontin, a myriad of drugs. Who knows what's in her system.”

Final blood work results could take a few more weeks, Jarema said. Hefty is free on bond.