Man pleads guilty to murder charge stemming from Eagan teen’s death

Court records show a Burnsville man who was arrested in connection to the death of an Eagan teen who overdosed has now pleaded guilty to one of the charges filed against him.

According to the court register, Jamal Adan, 30, entered a guilty plea to one count of third-degree aiding and abetting murder by selling, giving or distributing a controlled substance during a hearing on February 15 as part of a plea agreement.

Previously, Adan had a jury trial scheduled to begin on Monday, April 3. A sentencing hearing has now been scheduled for the morning of May 15.

Adan had also been charged with third-degree aiding and abetting for selling a controlled substance.

As previously reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, Adan, as well as Sadiq Aden Isack, were each charged in connection to the death of 16-year-old Hunter Carlson.

Eagan police were called to a home on the morning of Jan. 28, 2021, after Carlson’s mother found him unresponsive in his bed. Efforts to resuscitate Carlson were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead.

Police learned that Carlson had been experimenting with Percocet and had ingested Percocet with a teenage neighbor the night before.

Investigators found that the neighbor had bought the Percocet from Adan and Isack, as he had been for a month or two.

Carlson’s death was ruled as a result of positional asphyxia complicating acute fentanyl toxicity, and a pill fragment was found in the room.

According to the criminal complaint, officers found Adan, Isack and a third male in a Burnsville motel room on Feb. 13, 2021. Inside the motel, officers also found a baggie of blue pills similar to the fragment found in Carlson’s room. Additionally, phone records showed messages between Isack, Adan and the neighbor teen.

When the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension tested the pills found in the motel room and the fragment found in Carlson’s room, they both tested positive for fentanyl.

The attorney’s office says prosecutors tried to have the neighbor teen certified as an adult in connection to Carlson’s death. However, that was denied by the court and the teen instead pleaded guilty to third-degree murder on Jan. 6 as an extended juvenile jurisdiction, where he was placed on juvenile probation until he is 21. The teen will avoid a seven-year (86-month) prison sentence as long as he completes his juvenile sentence.

Authorities have been searching for Isack.