ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A Navy veteran who served as a medic in Afghanistan is accused of injecting two Alaska teens with drugs on separate occasions, giving one of them a fatal dose.
Sean Warner initially was charged with injecting only one girl - a 14-year-old from Anchorage who authorities say died from the heroin dose almost a week later. Court records show he also faces a new charge of injecting a 17-year-old with heroin the week before.
Anchorage authorities believe Warner was trying to help the girls do drugs and didn't intend to harm them. Warner, 26, was expected in court Thursday afternoon.
He faces a manslaughter charge in the December death of 14-year-old Jena Dolstad.
Dolstad's stepfather, Brett Williams, told KTUU-TV that the girl's mother wasn't around much. He said the family had its ups and downs but Dolstad always came home.
Warner's uncle, Doug Tweedie of Bend, Ore., said Warner served as a Navy field medic in Afghanistan and now suffers from post-traumatic stress.
Tweedie said he and his wife helped raise Warner and that he did very well in school and was ambitious. He also did well in the Navy.
Tweedie said he spoke with Warner through Warner's father.
"He's terribly remorseful," Tweedie said Thursday. "He's in a very difficult spot."
According to charging documents filed before Dolstad's death, two other men went with Warner to pick up the girl the evening of Dec. 22. They took her to Warner's home to hang out.
Warner was sharing a gram of heroin with the men, and Dolstad said she was willing to try something "new" but didn't want to inject herself, according to the court papers. Warner tried to inject the girl but failed, so he had her lie down on his bed and hold out an arm, then used his belt as a tourniquet and shot 25 to 30 units of heroin, taking several times to find a vein, the papers say.
The two witnesses told authorities they left the girl - identified as J.D. in court papers - on the bed and found her the next morning, face-down in her vomit.
Warner initially balked at calling 911 because he feared authorities would find drugs, and instead gave the teen Suboxone, a prescription drug used to treat opiate addicts, the court papers say. He called 911 after the girl began to convulse a couple of hours after he gave her the Suboxone, the papers say.
As far as Tweedie is concerned, no one really knows what happened.
"At this point, two addicts are blaming another addict," he said. "I don't know if I believe another addict."