Nobody got to see Victor Wayne Lynch’s reaction Thursday when a jury found him guilty of aiding and abetting murder in a White Bear Lake woman’s fatal drug overdose last fall.
That’s because Lynch was in jail.
The 50-year-old Vadnais Heights man was arrested Wednesday night in Hennepin County for suspected drug possession hours after his trial closed.
So he wasn’t present in the courtroom Thursday afternoon when he was the first individual to be convicted of murder charges in Ramsey County for his role in an unintentional fatal drug overdose.
Jurors found Lynch guilty of all five counts he faced, including two counts of aiding and abetting third-degree murder, one count of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter and two counts of fifth degree drug possession.
He was charged with the crimes several months after police responded to a Roseville motel the evening of Oct. 10, 2016, and found 28-year-old Trina Maurstad unconscious from an apparent drug overdose.
She was pronounced dead hours later from mixed drug toxicity.
Lynch was living at the Red Roof Inn at the time. He, Maurstad and one of her female acquaintances spent the previous evening getting high on a speedball of methamphetamines and heroin and having sex before falling asleep.
Prosecutors said he placed the tourniquet on Maurstad’s arm and injected her with the drugs that wound up taking her life.
His conviction was welcomed by Ramsey County authorities. The case was the first time Ramsey County prosecuted someone for his or her role in an unintentional drug overdose.
“I am pleased with the jury’s decision,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Cory Tennison said of the victory. “Justice was served today.”
Lynch’s attorney, Seamus Mahoney, called the verdict, its ramifications for his client, and Maurstad’s death “all tragedies.”
Mahoney questioned the wisdom of holding addicts responsible when a fellow user dies after willingly ingesting drugs.
Third-degree murder provides that anyone who, “without intent to cause death, proximately causes the death of a human being by directly or indirectly unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging or administering a controlled substance,” according to state statute.
“Prosecuting this health problem is not the way to go,” Mahoney said after the trial. “These are all drug addicts.”
Maurstad’s family and friends, who were fixtures throughout the trial, cried and hugged after the verdicts were read.
“It’s time for someone to be responsible,” said Maurstad’s mom, Tina Ramgren. “I am just happy that she has justice.”
Lynch’s defense argued that the state’s key witness in the case — the other woman who got high with him and Maurstad before her death — lacked credibility.
As a fellow user, she had reason to spin what really happened in that room so that investigators would focus their attention on Lynch instead of her, Mahoney argued.
He also pointed out that Lynch left the motel room for several hours on the day Maurstad overdosed, meaning Maurstad and the other woman had plenty of time to continue using more drugs while he was gone.
He also took issue with the state’s claim that Lynch actually administered drugs to Maurstad, saying his client only helped her with her tourniquet.
“It’s a very sad situation. It’s sad for everyone involved,” Mahoney said during his opening statement in the case. “But adjusting a junkie’s tourniquet is not enough to find (Lynch) guilty of murder.”
Prosecutors countered that argument with testimony from the other woman about the sequence of events that took place before Maurstad overdosed.
Tennison also relied on Lynch’s own statements to police following her death to prove his case.
He quoted Lynch during his closing argument.
“‘When they are doing this stuff, and they are (expletive) stabbing themselves a thousand times … and they are crying … I say ‘Please, let me get it for you. That’s what I do,’” Tennison read.
Tennison told the jury: “The defendant did, in fact, ‘get it for her.’ He put the shot in her arm.”
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi issued a statement about the state’s win late Thursday afternoon.
“We are obviously pleased with the jury’s verdict as it sends an important message that those who contribute to overdose deaths deserve to be held responsible for their role,” the statement read. “While prosecution alone cannot solve this crisis, it is an important part of the equation along with drug treatment programs, enhanced support for families, improved regulation of prescribing and dispensing practices of opiate-based pain medication, and holding manufacturers and distributors accountable for their role in this growing epidemic.”
Lynch is scheduled to be sentenced in December. The state plans to argue for 20 years.
Maurstad was the mother of three boys; her family wrote in her obituary they would “miss (her) beautiful smile.”