A drug house operator in Santa Rosa had been sentenced to serve 16 years in prison after two deadly overdoses.
50-year-old Toby Rosa was sentenced after a Sonoma County jury found Rosa guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
District Attorney Jill Ravitch said, “The prison sentence here is more than justified as this defendant acted with complete disregard for human life. He not only provided deadly controlled substances to these victims, but he actively refused to care for them as they lay dying in his home.”
The overdosed victims were identified as William Coffey and Jayson Taylor.
Rosa’s conviction resulted from an extensive homicide investigation by the Santa Rosa Police Department.
On March 9, 2018, officers were dispatched to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital after hospital workers said that Coffey had died from a drug overdose and that he was dropped off outside the emergency room under “suspicious circumstances.”
According to the police, Coffey had taken a deadly combination of methamphetamine, morphine, methadone, and fentanyl at Rosa’s home earlier that evening.
While investigating Coffey’s death, Taylor arrived at the same hospital and suffered from a drug overdose on March 29, 2018. After Taylor’s death, investigators discovered he had been transported to the hospital from Rosa’s home on Midway Drive.
With a search warrant, detectives searched Rosa’s house and found evidence of drug use and manufacturing.
“After extensive witness interviews, detectives discovered that Coffey and Taylor had visited the defendant with the expectation they would be able to use drugs at his home. Both Coffey and Taylor had known Rosa since high school,” prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, on March 9, 2018, Rosa was aware of Coffey’s overdose but refused to call 911 and told others not to call for help. Eventually, Rosa and another person took Coffey to the hospital and dropped him off without giving any information to the medical staff.
“When Taylor came to visit Rosa on March 26, Taylor also ingested drugs and overdosed in Rosa’s living room. Rosa once again refused to call 911. Instead, he chose to inject Taylor with methamphetamine in a failed attempt to revive him,” prosecutors said.
Someone recorded a cellphone video showing Rosa injecting Taylor with methamphetamine.
“Several hours after the injection, a friend of Taylor’s transported him to the hospital. However, Taylor never regained consciousness and died three days later,” prosecutors said.
