Man pleads guilty to 3rd-degree murder charge in connection with overdose death at MSP
Noah Aaron Collins, courtesy of Hennepin County Jail
A 24-year-old admitted to selling drugs to a man who later fatally overdosed at the airport.
Noah Aaron Collins, of St. Paul, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to third-degree murder in connection with an overdose death at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) last spring. Collins admitted to selling fentanyl to the victim.
The plea agreement shows he is expected to get no more than 60 months in prison if it is approved by a judge at sentencing. The deal also drops charges in Washington County, where he faces two counts of fifth-degree drug possession and one count of third-degree drug possession.
Court documents show investigators tied Collins to the death of the man after seizing his phone in an unrelated search.
RELATED: Man charged in fentanyl-related death at MSP
The criminal complaint in that case says a Dakota County Drug Task Force stopped Collins’ vehicle on April 23, 2023, and recovered more than 100 fentanyl pills and more than $2,000 in cash.
He admitted the drugs were his, but denied selling them, according to the criminal complaint. It was during this arrest that investigators seized Collins’ phone.
The victim, a FedEx worker at MSP, was found unresponsive and lying in a snowbank on March 31. He was later pronounced dead, the cause of which was found to be combined fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity.
Officers found burnt foil pieces in the victim’s hand and also seized 44 suspected fentanyl pills that were on him, a criminal complaint states. Additionally, his cellphone showed he’d been texting someone labeled “Big NC” to get fentanyl pills. That person was later identified as Collins.
The complaint states that their messages indicated the victim was also trying to get fentanyl for his friends from Collins and Lyft receipts showed a meet-up in St. Paul on March 28, which cellphone location data confirmed.
A witness who was also involved told officers that the victim came back from the meet-up with pills after paying $5 per pill in cash. The victim then split the pills between himself, the witness and a third person, court documents add.
Collins’ sentencing date is set for the morning of April 10.