Suspects in Tarmey drug death face 20-year minimum sentence

Mark Ross, Leslie Aberle will plead guilty a week from Monday. (Rochester Police photos)

CONCORD, N.H. - Two of the suspects involved in last October's fentanyl overdose death of Spaulding High School senior Eve Tarmey will plead guilty to charges of distribution of the drug with death resulting later this month in U.S. District Court in Concord.

Mark Ross, 41, of Rochester; and Leslie Aberle, 31, of Salisbury, Mass., both face a minimum sentence of 20 years, Donald Feith, 1^st Assistant U.S. Attorney, said today.

Notification of the change of plea from not guilty to guilty came at the end of last month for Ross and on July 7 from Aberle, court personnel said today. Their sentencing at separate hearings is set for July 18.

If their guilty pleas are accepted by the court, sentencing will most likely be pronounced about 90 days later so the judge in the case can review presentencing reports.

Meanwhile, Jazzmyn Rood, 41, of Rochester, the mother of Tarmey, who is also charged in her daughter's death, faces a September trial. Rood is charged with "misprision" of a felony, which accuses a person of being aware a crime has been committed and does not report to law enforcement while also taking action to conceal it. If convicted Rood faces a maximum of three years in federal prison.

Testimony at a probable cause hearing in November revealed that Rood "was almost 100 percent" sure Ross, her boyfriend, gave Tarmey heroin Oct. 16 inside a Rivera Motel room where he was living.

A Rochester detective testified that Rood told him Ross likely gave her daughter the drugs while she went into the bathroom to fix her hair and makeup, apparently because it upset her to see her daughter snort heroin.

According to the detective, Tarmey, Ross and Aberle had driven to Methuen, Mass., on Oct. 16 to drop Tarmey off to visit her boyfriend, whom they were supposed to meet in the parking lot of the Market Basket there.

After the boyfriend didn't show they went to pick up two grams of heroin for $80 and then returned to the motel where all of them except Tarmey got high.

Then Tarmey became distraught over not meeting up with her date and wanted to get high, too, the detective testified, prompting Ross to tell Rood to go to the bathroom and fix her hair. Aberle then broke off a piece of the heroin, and Ross put it on the table, telling Tarmey to "do what she normally does."

Tarmey crushed up the heroin, and snorted it with a straw, according to a police affidavit.
The detective said that after Tarmey snorted the heroin, Aberle left, and Rood, Ross and Tarmey watched TV until they fell asleep.
When Ross got up to use the bathroom around 3:30 a.m., he found Tarmey slumped over in bed and knew she was dead, according to a police affidavit.

Police responded for a report of an unresponsive person inside a Riviera Motel room and declared Tarmey dead around 5 a.m. on Oct. 17, a Saturday.

Federal prosecutors took over the case in February, citing federal sentencing guidelines that could provide longer jail terms for the defendants if found guilty.