As a teen, Colin Shapard bought drugs online that ultimately killed two Park City boys, overdoses that shocked the mountain town in 2016.
Shapard was 15 at the time, and the synthetic opioids he purchased that ended up in the 13-year-olds’ hands weren’t yet illegal — which meant Shapard walked away from the tragedy without a jail sentence. Instead, he was ordered to complete a residential drug treatment program as part of his juvenile probation.
He went on to attend a teen wilderness program, enter another inpatient treatment program and enroll in college as he eventually developed post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, which doctors believed caused him to have seizures, court filings state. After two shoulder injuries in 2020 that happened during such seizures, he was prescribed opioids as he awaited reparative surgery.
The pills he took for the pain eventually ran out, prompting Shapard to once again seek out opioid-based drugs online, prosecutors say.
By the next year, he was selling the drugs he bought, leading to the 2022 overdose of another Park City resident and a new criminal case that a federal judge ruled Thursday will result in at least 20 years prison.
Read the full story at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.