PLACER COUNTY, Calif. — Placer County’s first fentanyl murder trial by jury ended with a conviction Tuesday.
Carson Schewe, 22, was found guilty of second-degree murder after selling Kade Webb a Percocet pill laced with fentanyl in December 2021.
It was a long process with three days of jury deliberations and two trials. The first was declared a mistrial after an independent lab failed to provide a report.
It extended the emotional toll the Webb family had to go through. Elizabeth Dillender said she lost not only a son but one of her best friends.
“There’s no closure when you lose a child. There’s no moving on or moving forward. Every day is like 'Groundhog Day' and then you just get through that day and it attaches to the next day,” Dillender said.
The Webb family is thankful Placer County wanted to make an unprecedented case with murder charges for selling fentanyl. It’s the first jury trial conviction of its kind for the county.
David Tellman, Chief Deputy District Attorney for Placer County, said they hope the message is clear to those looking to sell poison in Placer County.
“It validates what we have been working on, which is essentially the notion that when people put profit over people’s lives, they commit murder. And that is the position our office has taken, and that is a position we will continue to take based on the... deadly drugs that are being sold in our community,” Tellman said.
Webb's family says they know most families will never get to see the inside of a courtroom.
“We knew this wasn’t going to bring Kade back, but I think for all us, it gives us an opportunity to have a platform and be advocates,” Dillender said.
They’re using that platform for One Pill Can Kill Placer, holding assemblies at middle schools and high schools, and reaching 26,000 kids in two years.
Kurt Webb, Kade’s father, says he's continually troubled by the number of people losing their lives every day due to fentanyl.
"We're hoping, now that we have this, we can make a change, so Kade didn't die in vain and we can help save communities," Webb said.
The family is looking to build a legacy of awareness of how dangerous fentanyl is, so that Indigo "Indy" Kade Webb — the two-year-old daughter Kade Webb never got to meet — doesn’t have to lose anyone else. The Webbs hope no other family has to experience what they went through.
Kade is also the cousin of Logan Webb, the San Francisco Giants pitcher who also pledged to help in the fight against fentanyl.
Schewe’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.
While Schewe was the first jury conviction for fentanyl murder in Placer County, the case is not the first conviction overall for fentanyl murder in the county. A man pleaded guilty to murder in a fentanyl death last summer, marking the first person in California to be convicted of murder in a fentanyl death.
