A former Rice University football player has been taken into custody and charged with having given his fellow teammate Blain Padgett a fatal dose of the opioid carfentanil.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Stuart Mouchantaf, 26, of Katy, Texas, was taken into federal custody on Thursday and will appear before a judge over allegations that he gave a fatal dose of a tranquilizer used on elephants to Blain Padgett in March of 2018.
Specifically, Mouchantaf is being charged with conspiring to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute the powerful opioid that killed Padgett.
Padgett was a star defensive end for Rice and was expected to someday play in the NFL. His mother said she hopes a federal trial will bring attention to the problem of opioid addiction and black market drugs.
"We really want to get the message out there to young adults who might be in the same situation Blain was in," Wyndi Marsh Padgett said.
Padgett reportedly believed the pills Mouchantaf gave him were hydrocodone, a prescription painkiller. He took two of the pills, which contained carfentanil, which is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl.
