Maplewood woman charged with 3rd-degree murder after man's fatal drug overdose in Costco parking lot

A Maplewood woman was charged Friday with selling heroin to a New Prague man who overdosed and died in a Costco parking lot in Eden Prairie last month.

Beverly N. Burrell, 30, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with third-degree murder and two counts of selling narcotics. Authorities believe Burrell sold Nicholas Petrick, 29, a deadly batch of heroin laced with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate.

According to the complaint:

On April 15, Eden Prairie police responded to a call about a person slumped over in a car at the Costco on Technology Drive. The man, later identified as Petrick, was holding drug paraphernalia and appeared to have died from a narcotics overdose several days before. An autopsy would later confirm his cause of death as the ingestion of heroin laced with fentanyl.

Costco surveillance footage showed Petrick buying pizza inside the store around 2 p.m. on April 11. The slice was found half-eaten next to him in the car. Phone records showed he stopped using his cell just before the purchase.

A friend later told police that they both drove from Eden Prairie to downtown Minneapolis to buy heroin from a female dealer known as "Ice." Petrick's friend, who frequently bought drugs from Ice, said they began using heroin together. He later took Petrick back to Eden Prairie.

Records show seven phone calls between Ice and Petrick on April 11, less than an hour before he overdosed in his car, police said. His body was found four days later.

Authorities believe Burrell may be linked to at least one other heroin death in Carver County. A 20-year-old Chanhassen man died in January less than 24 hours after he purchased narcotics from Ice.

Investigators used a confidential informant to conduct a controlled buy from Ice while under surveillance by law enforcement downtown. On Thursday, officers conducted a second controlled buy and arrested Burrell in her vehicle. Police found 27.7 grams of packaged heroin and about $120,000 in cash in her home.

She remains jailed in lieu of $1 million bail.

Liz Sawyer • 612-673-4648