The Knox County Grand Jury handed down a five-count indictment against Dennis Banbury, Jr. on Monday, stemming from a June incident where a Knox County Jail inmate died from a drug overdose.
Banbury was indicted on one count of corrupting another with drugs, a second-degree felony, and one count of involuntary manslaughter, a first-degree felony for allegedly supplying the illegal narcotics that caused the death of Warren Bradford Taylor on June 3, 2017.
Banbury was also charged with one count of illegal conveyance of drugs into a detention facility, and two counts of aggravated possession of drugs for the allegations of bringing bulk quantities of methamphetamine and 3-Methylfentanyl into the jail. These three counts are all third-degree felonies.
According to Knox County Prosecutor Chip McConville, Inmate Taylor was found unresponsive in a segregated unit of the jail where the only other prisoner being housed was Banbury. Taylor was taken to Knox Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A subsequent autopsy revealed that Taylor died from a drug overdose.
Det. Lt. Craig Feeney of the Sheriff’s Office led the investigation which led to the June 8 discovery of methamphetamine and 3-Methylfentanyl in the cell occupied by Banbury. Banbury had been booked into the Jail on June 1 after a traffic stop by the Mount Vernon Police Department where narcotics were located.
Prosecutor McConville stated that the case underscores the deadly nature of fentanyl compounds that are becoming available in the area.
“Even minute amounts of fentanyl can be deadly, and certain officers who came into contact with the drugs involved in this case reported ill effects,” he said. The case took months to prepare, with cooperation from the Coroner’s Office, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Mansfield Police Crime Laboratory, McConville said.
If convicted, Banbury faces three to eleven years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, two to eight years for corrupting another with drugs, and 9-36 months on each the conveyance and drug possession charges.