Nine weeks after Jason Booth was found dead of an overdose in his apartment in the 900 block of Funston Avenue, city police charged Harvey Grant Edwards with allegedly giving the 40-year-old man the drugs that killed him.

The cause of Booth’s death was a combination of “fentanyl and xylazine toxicity with a contributory factor of cocaine use,” according to an affidavit filed by Agent Brittany Alexander, the lead investigator in the case.

Just this week, Gov. Josh Shapiro took action to add xylazine, a powerful veterinary tranquilizer used for treating horses and cows, to the state’s list of controlled substances.

Edwards, who police said has a criminal history that was “pages long,” delivered a controlled substance “that contained both fentanyl and xylazine to Booth who then ingested the substance and died as a result of an overdose,” Alexander said in court papers.

Booth, a 2000 graduate of Hughesville High School, was already dead when police and paramedics arrived at his apartment on the morning of Feb. 24.

Several people were there, including Edwards, police said.

Also there was a woman police identified as Booth’s “best friend,” who reported that another woman and a man (later identified as Edwards) showed up earlier at the apartment together, but that the woman left during an argument with Edwards, investigators said they were told,

Booth’s friend said she stepped out to do an errand, and when she returned, she found Booth and Edwards sitting in the apartment.

“She saw a rolled-up dollar bill with some type of brown powder or residue on the table. The woman questioned what Edwards and Booth were doing and why Edwards was still there,” according to Alexander’s affidavit.

“Jason then stood up and headed to a bedroom,” telling his friend that he was going to “lay down because he was not feeling well. The friend then heard a thump coming from the bedroom. She ran to the bedroom and saw Booth on the floor and knew something was wrong. She yelled Jason’s name numerous times before running into the living room and picking up the phone,” Alexander wrote in the affidavit.

The friend told investigators that before officers arrived on the scene, “she began yelling at Edwards,” demanding to know what he gave Booth and “what was wrong with Jason,” Alexander said in the court document.

All this information came to the attention of police when they interviewed the friend in depth several days after Booth died.

She told Alexander “she believed Edwards murdered Jason.”

When Edwards, 46, of 1532 W. Fourth St., was taken into custody at Booth’s apartment and placed in the Lycoming County Prison on a probation violation following the fatal overdose, he had on him “13 blue waxen heroin bags as well as a rolled up dollar bill for snorting,” that were discovered while he was being searched at the jail, Alexander said.

Through their investigation, police determined that before Booth’s death, Edwards traveled to Philadelphia, returning with bags of xylazine and fentanyl that he allegedly distributed.

Edwards was arraigned Thursday before District Judge Christian Frey on charges of drug delivery resulting in a death, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and illegal use of cellphone.

He was re-committed in lieu of $200,000 bail. Just late last year, Edwards was sentenced to five years to county probation after he was convicted of delivery of heroin, delivery of cocaine and possession of cocaine, according to court records.

Court documents also showed that Edwards was arrested by city police on drug offenses last May and again by the county’s Narcotics Enforcement Unit last August.

Investigators from the same unit arrested him on drug-trafficking charges in March 2021.

In September 2018, city police arrested him on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and public drunkenness after abandoning a toddler and just “wandering away” while under the influence of heroin, according to investigators.

Late Thursday afternoon, Lycoming County Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr. said his office is dealing with more and more drug overdoses that involve not just one or two known drugs, but oftentimes a cocktail of toxic substances that are more deadly because of their potency.

He also said that while Narcan can sometimes reverse the effects of a heroin or fentanyl overdose and save a life if administered in time, it has no such power to do the same when xylazine is ingested into the body.