PALM BAY, Fla. — A Brevard County mother wants a drug dealer brought to justice after her 19-year-old daughter died as a result of a drug overdose.

  • Florida law passed in 2017 allows for prosecution of overdose deaths
  • In Brevard and Seminole counties, several have been charged with murder or manslaughter
  • READ THE LAW: Florida Statute 782.04
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A Spectrum News 13 Watchdog investigation reveals a change in the way law enforcement investigates these cases could help bring her the justice she seeks. That change in the law allows for the prosecution of drug overdose deaths that happen as a result of fentanyl.

According to the State Attorney’s Office, law enforcement in Seminole and Brevard counties are now approaching all drug overdose deaths as a crime rather than accidents.

Angela Musiol’s daughter, Ariel, had plans to walk runways and grace magazine covers.

“She had an old soul, and she was just full of life,” Musiol said.

Ariel’s modeling dream would never become a reality — her life was cut short after she overdosed at a Palm Bay home in April. 

“It just feels like you have lost something, and you can’t get it back. And it’s been painful ever since," Musiol said.

Fueled by that pain, Musiol is still searching for answers, calling on police to investigate and ultimately bring whoever supplied that fatal amount of drugs to her daughter to justice.

“People started to give me information, and I started to share this information with the detectives,” Musiol said.

Sgt. Jeffery Spears heads up investigations at the Palm Bay Police Department. Because it is an ongoing active investigation, he couldn’t speak with us in detail about Muisol’s case, but he did share with us the type of evidence they often search for.

“We are looking for video surveillance, we are looking for people who know or saw who this person was last with, looking at who they have been contacting, and ultimately identify who their dealer is,” Spears said.

That police work, and a pivot in approach to these cases, is the reason Assistant State Attorney Dan Faggard says Brevard and Seminole counties are having more success getting indictments.

“When we started looking at it as a crime vs. an accident, that is when we started having success, and so law enforcement changed the way they responded to these deaths," Faggard said. "They changed the way they looked at them, they changed the way they investigated them, and ultimately it changed the outcome. It made a case that could be successfully prosecuted.” 

That change in approach for law enforcement came after a law went into effect in October 2017 making it possible for drug dealers to face murder charges if users overdose and die from fentanyl.

Since October 2017, 10 people have been charged in overdose deaths in Seminole County. Eight of those were first-degree murder indictments, and two were manslaughter charges.

However, three of those eight first-degree murder indictments were overturned by an appellate court judge’s ruling. According to that ruling, those charges were overturned because the victims in those cases died from fentanyl drug overdoses before October 1, 2017, which is when the amended controlled substance law went into effect.

In that same time frame, two people in Brevard County were charged with manslaughter for overdose deaths.  

“We want heroin dealers to know that if you sell heroin and someone dies, you are exposed to the possibility of spending the rest of your life in prison,” Faggard said.

With this change in how law enforcement is tackling overdose deaths, Musiol hopes to find justice for her daughter, a life she says ended too soon.

“I feel like she would have done so much in life,” Musiol said.

Palm Bay Police say Ariel Musiol's death is an open active case. Meanwhile, prosecutors encourage anyone who feels that an overdose death case should be looked into more extensively should contact their local law enforcement office.