Rider student charged in death

Princeton Borough police arrested a sophomore at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in connection with the death of classmate Justin Warfield, a freshman who died Wednesday morning after using heroin, Mercer County prosecutor's office spokeswoman Casey DeBlasio said in a statement yesterday.

The charges accuse 19-year-old Kieran Hunt of Piscataway, N.J., of purchasing heroin in Newark on Tuesday afternoon. He then allegedly returned to the Westminster campus and prepared a bag of heroin for the 18-year-old Warfield and helped him inject it while sitting in Hunt's car in a campus parking lot. Hunt also allegedly injected himself with another bag of heroin.

Not long after the injection, Warfield passed out, according to the statement. Hunt then called his 19-year-old friend Robert Kelly, a sophomore at Westminster, who helped Hunt drive Warfield to the Witherspoon Street apartment of Nicholas Landrum, a 20-year old junior from Mullica Hills, N.J. At around 11:30 p.m., Kelly and Hunt carried the unconscious Warfield inside and placed him on a futon.

Hunt, Kelly, Landrum and 19-year-old sophomore Bryan Smith of Freehold, N.J., each allegedly drew on Warfield with markers at some point during the next five hours.

At about 5 a.m., the statement said, Landrum noticed Warfield was not breathing and called 911. An ambulance brought Warfield to the University Medical Center at Princeton, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 6 a.m.

The prosecutor's office is still awaiting toxicology results from an autopsy conducted Tuesday. In its statement, the office said it cannot yet confirm whether Warfield consumed alcohol. A statement released by Rider president Mordechai Rozanski said that it did "not appear that alcohol was a factor in [Warfield's] death."

Additionally, the statement by the prosecutor's office said Warfield's family had confirmed he was taking the stimulant Adderall "pursuant to a prescription," adding that "police received information that Warfield may have taken several doses of the medication prior to the injection of heroin."

Hunt was charged with strict liability for Warfield's drug-induced death, a first-degree offense. First-degree offenses are the most serious criminal matters and can lead to 10 to 20 years in prison. The Borough also charged Hunt with heroin distribution within 1,000 feet of a school. He was released on $100,000 bail and his first court appearance is scheduled for Monday.

Kelly, Landrum and Smith were charged with harassing the unconscious Warfield by drawing on him.

Borough police obtained warrants to search Warfield's dorm room, Hunt's vehicle and the apartment where the death occurred. More drug charges are expected to be filed due to evidence taken, according to the statement.

Princeton's deputy director of Public Safety, Charles Davall, said he is "absolutely concerned" about a similar incident happening at the University. But, he said, "we haven't seen any evidence of use of hard drugs on campus." Administrators have repeatedly said they are most concerned about the possibility of a student death due to excessive alcohol consumption, with Public Safety Director Steven Healy calling such a scenario his "worst nightmare" earlier this month.

The annual Public Safety security report, released Oct. 1, did note an uptick in drug abuse violations in dorms, from only nine in 2004 to 22 last year. Nearly all of the citations were for marijuana possession rather than hard drugs, however.