Richland PD: Man arrested in deadly Thanksgiving 2023 overdose
RICHLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — The Richland Police Department says a suspect is facing charges in the Thanksgiving 2023 overdose death of a 32-year-old man.
Ethan Brockway died of an apparent overdose on Nov. 23, 2023, according to the Richland Police Department.
'From an early age, Thanksgiving was Ethan's favorite holiday, with lots of food, family, and Lions football,' his father, Tom Brockway, said in a statement provided to the police department. 'For us, it's a day we will always remember as the day our son, Ethan, died!'
Police said they investigated for months, 'never ceasing in the pursuit of Justice.' Investigators identified a suspect, a 31-year-old man from Kalamazoo who was found to be in possession of fentanyl, according to a release from the police department.
Charges related to the delivery of fentanyl causing death were authorized Friday, police said, and the suspect was taken into custody Monday. Police did not immediately release his name.
Tom Brockway said his son 'died from a person who decided selling poison to make a few dollars was worth the risk of taking someone's life.'
'It is a challenge to put one foot in front of the other and try to make it through each day,' his statement continued. '… To take a person off the street to prevent the pain it can cause families and friends is a step forward in this hellacious epidemic.'
The police department offered its condolences to the family and emphasized its commitment to protecting the community.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Families of those killed in collapse of Georgia ferry dock sue companies that built it
ATLANTA (AP) — Relatives of seven people who drowned in waters off a Georgia island after a ferry dock walkway collapsed announced Wednesday they filed a lawsuit against the companies that designed and built it. Dozens of people were standing on the metal walkway over the water between a ferry boat and a dock on Sapelo Island when it snapped in the middle. Many plunged into the water and got swept away by tidal currents, while others clung desperately to the hanging, fractured structure. The tragedy Oct. 19 struck as about 700 people visited Sapelo Island for a celebration of the tiny Hogg Hummock community founded by enslaved people who were emancipated after the Civil War. Reachable only by boat, it's one of the few Gullah-Geechee communities remaining in the South, where slaves worked on isolated island plantations retained much of their African heritage. 'It was supposed to be a celebration of Black pride, but it became a day of great, great, great Black loss of humanity and life,' civil rights attorney Ben Crump, one of several lawyers behind the lawsuit, told an Atlanta news conference. 'We're filing this lawsuit to speak to that tragedy.' Attorneys for the families of those killed and more than three dozen survivors say the 80-foot (24-meter) walkway was weak because of a lack of structural reinforcement, poor welding and failure by the Georgia firm that built it to follow design plans. The walkway was 'so poorly designed and constructed that any competent construction professional should have recognized the flimsy and unstable nature of the gangway,' the lawsuit says. Regina Brinson, one of the suing survivors, said she was on the crowded walkway when she heard a loud crack and saw family friend Carlotta McIntosh plunge into the water holding her walker. Brinson and her uncle, Isaiah Thomas, also fell. Brinson recalled prying her uncle's fingers from her shirt to avoid being dragged underwater. Both Thomas and McIntosh died. 'The pain doesn't get any easier whatsoever,' Brinson told the Atlanta news conference. Kimberly Wood said she tumbled from the collapsed walkway clutching her 2-year-old daughter. Her older girl, 8, clung to the dangling walkway's railing. Wood said she managed to tread water until she reached a life preserver tossed from the ferry boat. Her older daughter was rescued and treated for wounds to her hand, said Wood, who had an injured shoulder. 'I'm shaking now just taking about it,' said Wood, another plaintiff. The lawsuit targets four private contractors hired to design and rebuild the ferry dock and walkway for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The project was finished in 2021. The walkway was fabricated by McIntosh County business Crescent Equipment Co. Its attorney, Clinton Fletcher, declined to comment. The project's general contractor, Virginia-based Centennial Contractors Enterprises, said by email that it doesn't comment on pending litigation. So did SSOE Group, which purchased an Atlanta design firm named as a defendant several years ago. An engineering firm also named as a defendant did not immediately return a phone message Wednesday. The lawsuit doesn't target the Department of Natural Resources or any other Georgia state agency. It says the department relied on its private contractors to ensure the walkway was safely built, which was "beyond the scope of the DNR's internal expertise and qualifications.' The agency told The Associated Press last year that the walkway should have been able to support the weight of 320 people. About 40 people were standing on it when it snapped. 'There was supposed to be a certified professional engineer that signed off on that part of the project and that was neglected," said Chadrick Mance, a Savannah attorney representing nine of the injured. Filed in Gwinnett County State Court in metro Atlanta, the lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for negligence, wrongful deaths and personal injuries. The cause of the collapse remains under investigation by the state officials, said Haley Chafin, a spokesperson for the Department of Natural Resources. State Attorney General Chris Carr also tapped a private engineering firm to perform an independent investigation. ___ Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. ___ Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sherri Papini Says Her 'Poor Mother' Was Taken 'Wildly Out of Context' in Doc: 'She Knows I Was Kidnapped'
In HBO's 'The Curious Case of Sherri Papini,' her mother Loretta Graeff is heard saying "It was not an abduction" Papini claimed during a new episode of 'The Viall Files' podcast that the quote was edited out of context and didn't reflect her mother's true beliefs She said her mother "definitely knows" she was kidnapped, despite Papini's 2022 guilty pleaSherri Papini — the California mom who admitted to faking her 2016 kidnapping — is pushing back on how her mother was portrayed in a new docuseries, claiming a quote that made headlines was taken "wildly out of context." In The Curious Case of Sherri Papini, Papini's mother Loretta Graeff is shown saying: 'It was not an abduction.' The quote appears to show Graeff doubting her daughter's version of events — a sentiment echoed by law enforcement and federal prosecutors, who ultimately revealed that Papini had orchestrated the entire disappearance herself. But now, Papini says the scene doesn't tell the whole story. 'My poor mother… when you don't have control over your own audio and it gets cut and clipped… it can be taken wildly out of context,' Papini, 42, said during a new episode of The Viall Files podcast. Pressed on whether her mother had changed her mind after initially expressing skepticism, Papini replied: 'Oh, no. My mom definitely knows that I was held captive and that I was kidnapped.' She added that while things were 'very confusing in the beginning,' her mother came to understand what 'actually happened' — and that the quote used in the documentary omitted that supposed clarification. The docuseries recounts the story that once gripped the nation: Papini disappeared while jogging near her Redding, Calif., home in November 2016. She resurfaced 22 days later on Thanksgiving morning, battered and shackled, claiming she had been abducted at gunpoint by two masked Hispanic women. That story unraveled in 2022 when federal investigators revealed Papini had been hiding out with a former boyfriend. She was charged with mail fraud and making false statements, later pleading guilty in a plea deal that sent her to prison for 18 months. She was released in 2023 to community confinement and remains under supervised release. In recent interviews — including the HBO project and her podcast appearance — Papini has positioned herself less as a manipulative hoaxster and more as a woman misrepresented by a hostile media, overzealous prosecutors and edited footage. The 42-year-old divorced mother-of-two says that her kidnapping wasn't a hoax, and that she only lied about the identity of her purported captor: her ex-boyfriend. She said she feared for her safety, and that her ex-husband Keith Papini would revoke her access to their children if she told the whole truth. (Papini's ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, has never been charged with a crime. He declined PEOPLE's request for comment in May, around when the documentary began airing.) Her alleged capture was preceded by a months-long emotional affair with James, she said, and she felt partially responsible for her circumstances after "leading him on," she said in the documentary. "I agreed with James to make up that someone else did it [in exchange for my release]," Papini claims. "It wasn't the right choice and I know that... I wish I would've told the truth from the day I was in the hospital — that it was James." Related: Why Sherri Papini's Own Mother Doesn't Believe Her New Story About Supposed Kidnapping Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. She calls the HBO project a 'trial by media,' noting that she never faced a criminal trial, and describes herself as living under a 'life sentence' of judgment. She also alleges that key evidence — such as interrogation audio in which, she claims, law enforcement guided her ex-boyfriend's responses — was left out of the final cut. Papini says she hopes her mother will publicly clarify her purported position if given the chance. 'I think given the opportunity, sure,' she said. But for many, the words spoken on-camera in the HBO series stand in sharp contrast to Papini's revised narrative. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sherri Papini Says Her 'Poor Mother' Was Taken 'Wildly Out of Context' in Doc: 'She Knows I Was Kidnapped'
In HBO's 'The Curious Case of Sherri Papini,' her mother Loretta Graeff is heard saying "It was not an abduction" Papini claimed during a new episode of 'The Viall Files' podcast that the quote was edited out of context and didn't reflect her mother's true beliefs She said her mother "definitely knows" she was kidnapped, despite Papini's 2022 guilty pleaSherri Papini — the California mom who admitted to faking her 2016 kidnapping — is pushing back on how her mother was portrayed in a new docuseries, claiming a quote that made headlines was taken "wildly out of context." In The Curious Case of Sherri Papini, Papini's mother Loretta Graeff is shown saying: 'It was not an abduction.' The quote appears to show Graeff doubting her daughter's version of events — a sentiment echoed by law enforcement and federal prosecutors, who ultimately revealed that Papini had orchestrated the entire disappearance herself. But now, Papini says the scene doesn't tell the whole story. 'My poor mother… when you don't have control over your own audio and it gets cut and clipped… it can be taken wildly out of context,' Papini, 42, said during a new episode of The Viall Files podcast. Pressed on whether her mother had changed her mind after initially expressing skepticism, Papini replied: 'Oh, no. My mom definitely knows that I was held captive and that I was kidnapped.' She added that while things were 'very confusing in the beginning,' her mother came to understand what 'actually happened' — and that the quote used in the documentary omitted that supposed clarification. The docuseries recounts the story that once gripped the nation: Papini disappeared while jogging near her Redding, Calif., home in November 2016. She resurfaced 22 days later on Thanksgiving morning, battered and shackled, claiming she had been abducted at gunpoint by two masked Hispanic women. That story unraveled in 2022 when federal investigators revealed Papini had been hiding out with a former boyfriend. She was charged with mail fraud and making false statements, later pleading guilty in a plea deal that sent her to prison for 18 months. She was released in 2023 to community confinement and remains under supervised release. In recent interviews — including the HBO project and her podcast appearance — Papini has positioned herself less as a manipulative hoaxster and more as a woman misrepresented by a hostile media, overzealous prosecutors and edited footage. The 42-year-old divorced mother-of-two says that her kidnapping wasn't a hoax, and that she only lied about the identity of her purported captor: her ex-boyfriend. She said she feared for her safety, and that her ex-husband Keith Papini would revoke her access to their children if she told the whole truth. (Papini's ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, has never been charged with a crime. He declined PEOPLE's request for comment in May, around when the documentary began airing.) Her alleged capture was preceded by a months-long emotional affair with James, she said, and she felt partially responsible for her circumstances after "leading him on," she said in the documentary. "I agreed with James to make up that someone else did it [in exchange for my release]," Papini claims. "It wasn't the right choice and I know that... I wish I would've told the truth from the day I was in the hospital — that it was James." Related: Why Sherri Papini's Own Mother Doesn't Believe Her New Story About Supposed Kidnapping Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. She calls the HBO project a 'trial by media,' noting that she never faced a criminal trial, and describes herself as living under a 'life sentence' of judgment. She also alleges that key evidence — such as interrogation audio in which, she claims, law enforcement guided her ex-boyfriend's responses — was left out of the final cut. Papini says she hopes her mother will publicly clarify her purported position if given the chance. 'I think given the opportunity, sure,' she said. But for many, the words spoken on-camera in the HBO series stand in sharp contrast to Papini's revised narrative. Read the original article on People
