Monroe man convicted of manslaughter by overdose

EVERETT – A jury found Avery Bresnan guilty Wednesday of a rare drug-related manslaughter in connection with the 2020 fentanyl overdose death of a young Monroe man.

After a nearly week-long trial in Snohomish County Superior Court, jurors began deliberating around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. It took them more than a day to reach a verdict. Bresnan, 26, was found guilty of drug-induced manslaughter in the death of 20-year-old Jayden Barker-Fisher.

“Desperate people in desperate situations make desperate decisions,” Assistant District Attorney Adam Sturdivant told the jury Tuesday. “Jayden’s desperate decisions cost him his life. There is no doubt he was an addict, there is no doubt he died from fentanyl, and the state is convinced there is no doubt where he got the fentanyl.”

Bresnan, of Sedro-Woolley, and Barker-Fisher knew each other in high school, according to the indictment. Barker-Fisher had struggled with substance abuse in the months before his death.

According to the indictment, Bresnan “often boasted to his customers that his pills killed people.”

According to charging documents, Facebook messages between the defendant and Barker-Fisher starting on April 15 show the two discussing exchanging pills.

Barker-Fisher told his aunt he was suffering from back pain and had been prescribed painkillers, the indictment says. He no longer had a prescription, but told his aunt that his friend “Avery” was selling pills.

On April 28, Bresnan and Barker-Fisher planned to “rob a meth user, split the money and get drugs,” defense attorney Taylor Severns told the jury Tuesday.

Messages from that night show Barker-Fisher and Bresnan talked about getting money for gas and driving to Monroe together, court records show. The text messages show Barker-Fisher was back home after 10:30 p.m. and wrote, “After everything that happened, I’d rather not go out tonight.”

On Tuesday, Severns told jurors there were “many unanswered questions” in the case.

“We don’t know where Jayden and Avery went, we don’t know who they saw,” Severns said. “We don’t know who sold them the drugs, we don’t know if they got the drugs from the same person or if they split up and went their separate ways.”

The next morning, Barker-Fisher’s cousin found him unconscious and bleeding from the mouth in his bedroom, according to the charges. Barker-Fisher’s cousin told police he found a Tic-Tac container in Barker-Fisher’s room with 4½ counterfeit Oxycodone M30 pills inside, according to the charges.

A toxicology report found 7.6 nanograms of fentanyl per milliliter in Barker-Fisher’s blood, along with THC, caffeine and citalopram, an antidepressant.

The Snohomish County Coroner’s Office determined that he died of an accidental fentanyl overdose.

This is Bresnan’s first felony conviction, and under state guidelines he faces between 4¼ and 5⅔ years in prison for drug-related manslaughter. Sentencing is scheduled for September 12.

Maya Tizon: 425-339-3434; [email protected]; Twitter: @mayatizon.