Woman gets 15 to life in first county fentanyl murder case

A 40-year-old Reseda woman was sentenced Sept. 1 to 15 years to life in state prison for selling the fentanyl-laced drugs that killed a 28-year-old Simi Valley man — a case prosecutors are calling the first fentanyl murder conviction in Ventura County history.

Charity Faith Wiley pleaded guilty in July to second-degree murder in the June 2024 death of Devin Kastler, along with five additional felonies tied to what investigators described as a multi-county drug trafficking operation involving fentanyl, methamphetamine, counterfeit pills, firearms and money laundering, according to the Simi Valley Acorn.

The sentence marks a milestone in how Ventura County confronts the opioid crisis, and for Simi Valley residents it carries a blunt message: dealing drugs that kill someone here can now bring a murder charge, not just narcotics counts.

How the Case Unfolded

The case began June 6, 2024, when the Ventura County Fentanyl and Overdose Crimes Units responded to a report of an apparent overdose at a residence in unincorporated Simi Valley. Investigators found drugs and paraphernalia in Kastler's room, and toxicology testing later confirmed lethal levels of fentanyl — a synthetic opioid that can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine — combined with xylazine, a veterinary sedative not approved for human use, according to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.

The investigation traced the supply chain back to Wiley, who was arrested March 5, 2025, at her Los Angeles County home by VC FOCUS investigators and Simi Valley police. Searches of her home, a separate apartment authorities said was used for her drug operation, and storage locations uncovered more than three pounds of fentanyl, one and a half pounds of methamphetamine and 2.6 pounds of counterfeit Xanax pills suspected of containing fentanyl, along with packaged cocaine, heroin and additional methamphetamine.

Investigators also seized more than $96,000 in cash and three firearms, two of them loaded. One weapon had been stolen and was obtained by Wiley in exchange for drugs, prosecutors said.

A Dealer Who Knew the Risk, Prosecutors Say

What set the case apart, prosecutors argued, was evidence that Wiley knew her product was killing people. Digital evidence from her cellphone showed an associate warning her about selling "tranq-dope" — street terminology for fentanyl mixed with xylazine — telling her the drug was killing people and that he would not sell it to Kastler, according to the DA's office.

Wiley responded that fentanyl should not be sold to people who "dabble," prosecutors said. Five days later, on June 5, 2024, she sold the drug to Kastler. He died the next day.

"She had business plans; she kept meticulous notes; she had a pricing strategy and she preyed upon some of the most vulnerable members of our society," said Deputy District Attorney Devin Mirchi of the DA's Major Crimes Narcotics Unit, who prosecuted the case with Senior Deputy District Attorney Audry Nafziger.

Investigators found numerous cellphones, stolen and fraudulent identification, a money counter, packaging materials, hundreds of pay-owe sheets and what prosecutors described as a written business plan for the operation. Wiley admitted sentencing allegations that the offenses spanned multiple jurisdictions and were carried out with planning, sophistication or professionalism.

A Family's Grief in Court

At the Sept. 1 sentencing hearing, Kastler's mother, father, aunt and a close friend addressed the court about his life and the hole his death left behind.

"When my child Devin died, my life did not simply change. The life I knew ended as well. There is a version of me who existed before and now a version of the person I have had to become," his mother, Kristi Kastler, told the court. "Charity knew her drugs were dirty. She didn't just sell Devin drugs, she sold him something that would ultimately take away his future."

In addition to the murder count, Wiley pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing fentanyl for sale, possession of a controlled substance while armed with a firearm, money laundering and conspiracy to commit a crime.

Why It Matters for Simi Valley

The conviction is the first of its kind in Ventura County, according to the District Attorney's Office, and signals a prosecutorial strategy of treating fatal overdoses as homicides when dealers knew the danger — a framework enabled in part by California law allowing second-degree murder charges in drug-death cases.

The enforcement muscle behind the case came from VC FOCUS, a regional task force that includes the Ventura County Sheriff's Office, Simi Valley Police Department, Oxnard Police Department, the District Attorney's Office, the California Highway Patrol and federal agencies. The task force targets fentanyl trafficking and works to identify the sources of drugs entering Ventura County — a pipeline that frequently runs through Los Angeles County, as Wiley's Reseda-based operation illustrates.

The stakes remain high. The Ventura County Medical Examiner reported 216 overdose deaths countywide in 2025, with fentanyl detected — alone or combined with other drugs — in 134 of them, according to the DA's office. That means fentanyl was a factor in well over half of the county's fatal overdoses.

For Simi Valley families, the Kastler case is both a warning and, in the eyes of prosecutors, accountability. Officials say the message to traffickers is now unambiguous: if you sell fentanyl in Ventura County and someone dies, the charge may be murder — and the sentence, as Wiley learned this month, may be measured in decades to life.

Wiley will be eligible for parole consideration after serving 15 years, under the terms of her indeterminate sentence.