A New York woman, Tabitha Bundrick, stands accused of employing fentanyl-laced substances to incapacitate and subsequently rob four men. The result of this calculated crime spree, as we now know it, led to the tragic loss of three lives.
Bundrick was indicted on Wednesday with 11 counts, including murder, robbery, burglary, and assault charges. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has labeled her actions as “extremely calculated”, drawing parallels to other recent instances in New York, involving fatalities tied to drugged and robbed victims.
Bundrick, who has entered a plea of not guilty, reportedly targeted her victims between 2023 and 2024. On April 20, 2023, prosecutors said, she lured two men to an empty apartment in Washington Heights under the pretense of an illegal transaction, offering them drugs laced with fentanyl, falsely labeled as cocaine.
Upon waking the next morning, one of the men discovered his companion, Mario Paullan, lifeless and their belongings gone. The surviving individual had no recollection of the night’s events, prosecutors added.
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A second fatal incident took place on Sept. 27, 2023, involving victim Miguel Navez. As per the allegations, Bundrick offered Navez fentanyl-laced substances at his apartment, resulting in his death. His personal belongings were found missing days later when his brother discovered him deceased.
This development follows earlier reports that a third death occurred on Feb. 25, 2024. Prosecutors claim Bundrick trailed Abrihan Fernandez to his residence, where she furnished him with the lethal fentanyl-laced drugs and later absconded with several bags from the apartment.
Prosecutors allege that Bundrick, on multiple occasions, used stolen credit cards and cell phones from the victims. Bundrick’s public defender has yet to comment on these charges.
Bundrick had previously pleaded guilty in February to federal drug-related charges connected to the same incidents and was sentenced on Aug. 6 to serve 156 months in prison.
Her defense team, in a sentencing memo, presented Bundrick as a victim of childhood sexual abuse with the intellectual function of a third-grader. They vehemently deny the characterization of Bundrick as a calculated killer or a drug dealer, instead arguing that she used the drugs as a coping mechanism for having to resort to prostitution. They maintain that Bundrick had no intention of causing harm, claiming that she, too, used the same drugs as her victims.
Federal prosecutors, on the other hand, counter that Bundrick was aware of the lethal potential of fentanyl and knowingly administered it to her victims, continuing this pattern with several men.
