An Akron man has been charged with giving his wife the drugs that killed her when she overdosed in April.
Robert Tepper, 54, faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and corrupting another with drugs. Both are felonies.
Tepper is accused of providing 52-year-old Karen Tepper with fentanyl, a drug similar to heroin but much more deadly. Drug dealers have been known to sell heroin mixed with fentanyl or even fentanyl in place of heroin to make their products more potent and competitive.
Sometimes drug dealers won’t tell their customers that fentanyl is in the batch, so users don’t know to take a smaller dose — which can lead to overdose and death.
According to police, Tepper admitted to purchasing the drugs and providing them to his wife. It’s unclear whether Tepper allegedly knew the drugs contained fentanyl.
Tepper and his wife lived together in the 700 block of Moon Street, according to a police report of the incident.
Tepper told police he found his wife unresponsive on April 3 and called 911. She was pronounced dead at the scene.