DAVIDSON COUNTY — A Greensboro man pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a drug-related death and subsequent investigations of drug sales.
Marcus Dwayne Parker, 42, pleaded guilty on May 27 in Davidson County Superior Court to death by distribution, trafficking heroin greater than 28 grams, two counts of assault on law enforcement officer, possession of a firearm by felon and being a habitual felon, according to a press release.
Parker was sentenced to a minimum of nearly 23 years in prison.
Although the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office said when Parker was arrested last October that Parker lived in Greensboro, the Davidson County Detention Center, where he was still being held on Tuesday, listed his address as being on Texas Drive in Lexington.
In June 2024 after a death attributed to a suspected overdose, detectives with the sheriff’s office began a narcotics investigation of the distribution of fentanyl in Davidson County. Parker was identified as the person who provided the drugs to the person who died, whose name has not been released. Parker continued to distribute narcotics in Davidson County, the sheriff’s office said.
In July, detectives with the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office and Greensboro Police Department executed search warrants at an address in the 200 block of Hillcrest Court, Lexington, and one in the 1200 block of Blackmoor Road, Greensboro, and seized more than 60 grams of fentanyl, the sheriff’s office said.
Parker and a Lexington man — Cory William Bailor of Hillcrest Court — were arrested on drug charges at that time.
In October, after autopsy results showed that the cause of death was fentanyl toxicity, Parker and Bailor were indicted and charged with felony death by distribution.
Bailor was convicted of a felony in December and sentenced to six to eight years in prison, according to the N.C. Department of Adult Correction. The offense date is listed as June 2024, but no information about the specific felony conviction or what it involved was immediately available.