WISCONSIN RAPIDS − A 53-year-old Nekoosa man pleaded not guilty July 2 to causing the death of a 41-year-old Nekoosa woman.
Paul J. Hardwick pleaded not guilty to first-degree reckless homicide in the death of Sara M. Wilkinson by the delivery of drugs, possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, felony bail jumping, maintaining a drug trafficking place and drug paraphernalia possession.
Following a preliminary hearing July 2, Wood County Circuit Judge Timothy Gebert ordered the case to continue. A pretrial in the case is scheduled for Sept. 5.
According to the criminal complaint, at 5:54 p.m. April 1, a Nekoosa officer responded to a call for a 41-year-old woman who wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse. When the officer arrived on scene, he found Wilkinson lying on her back on the kitchen floor and a man performing CPR.
Hardwick was sitting on a couch in the living room. Another woman was inside the residence.
The Wisconsin Rapids Fire Department ambulance arrived on the scene and worked for a half hour to revive the unconscious woman, according to the complaint. At that point, hospital staff said lifesaving efforts could stop. Wilkinson died, according to the complaint.
Hardwick told the officers Wilkinson had gone down into the basement to mix vinegar and baking soda to put down the drain to clean it out, according to the criminal complaint. Hardwick said Wilkinson seemed all right when she came back upstairs and went into the living room.
The other woman in the house asked if the Wilkinson could have inhaled some chemicals while in the basement that harmed her, according to the complaint. The woman said that Wilkinson had been using bleach to clean the drains.
The man who had been doing CPR said he had gone to Saratoga to take a roommate to work. He said when he got back, he found Wilkinson in a chair in the living room and she wasn’t responding, according to the complaint. He said he and Hardwick moved Wilkinson to the floor and he began CPR.
An officer went into the basement where he had been told Wilkinson had been working to clear a drain. He found about two inches of stagnant water on the floor, but he did not smell any chemicals and did not have any problems breathing while in the basement.
The officer found a purse lying on the floor next to the chair where Wilkinson had been sitting. Inside, he found two clear plastic bags with a powdery residue inside and a small cut straw that also had a powdery residue inside the tube, according to the complaint.
Officers got a warrant and began to search the home. They found a locked wooden cabinet in the kitchen hallway. All three occupants of the house denied having a key to the cabinet so officers unscrewed the hinge, according to the complaint.
Inside, the officers found multiple packages with labels on them like “4 Glitter Bomb,” “95 Apple Tart” and “4 GMO.” Inside the packages was suspected marijuana. They also found a digital scale and a clear plastic bag containing a white rock-like substance that tested positive for cocaine, according to the complaint.
Officers also found suspected marijuana inside jars in the woman’s bedroom. When they went into Hardwick’s bedroom, he pulled a key out of his pocket and gave it to them, according to the complaint. He said it was the key to the padlock on the locked kitchen cabinet.
Hardwick told officers he was responsible for all of the illegal drugs in the residence, according to the complaint. He said the other people in the home didn’t know anything about the drugs and didn’t know he was dealing them. Hardwick said he sometimes used his roommates’ phones to arrange drug deals, according to the complaint.
Officers asked Hardwick if he understood that if an autopsy showed the Wilkinson had died from a drug overdose, he’d get the blame. Hardwick said he understood that and that he had given Wilkinson cocaine that day, according to the complaint.
An autopsy showed Wilkinson had a high level of cocaine in her blood. It determined she died from a combination of drugs including cocaine and ethanol, according to the complaint.
Contact Karen Madden kmadden@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KMadden715, Instagram @kmadden715 or Facebook at www.facebook.com/karen.madden.33.
This article originally appeared on Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: Nekoosa man pleads not guilty in woman’s overdose death; complaint provides new details
Reporting by Karen Madden, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune / Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune
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