PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — Detectives believe it was illicit pills laced with fentanyl that killed a 14-year-old girl in Prescott Valley.
Ana Perez says her daughter, Alondra Valeria Salinas, was looking forward to the first in-person classes of her freshman year when she died on Oct. 20.
“I just miss her and love her,” Perez said. “She always found a way to get to people’s hearts by helping them.”
Perez said Alondra was excited to be returning to class, even packing up her backpack and getting ready the night before.
But the morning of Oct. 20 is when Perez’s world came to a stop.
“I tried waking her and she wouldn’t get up, and I told her, ‘Alondra, please get up!’ and she wouldn’t,” Perez said.
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office believes the 14-year-old overdosed on counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.
Detectives believe 18-year-old Aaron Lundsford Schmit and other juveniles are likely the ones who gave her the drugs, pointing to a Snapchat post-dated to the day before Alondra died showing Lundsford Schmit offering to sell THC candy ropes and blue pills.
“Probably didn’t have a clue what she was taking, or if she did, what it can do to her. You can take it one time and it can be over for you,” Chris Wilson with Yavapai County Sherrif’s Office said.
Members of the Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking task force identified an apartment and a car associated with Lundsford Schmit.
Searches on the car and apartment by law enforcement led to Lundsford Schmit and 18-year-old Christopher Munsey being arrested. Both of them are facing drug charges.
Lundsford Schmit is also charged with three counts of endangerment because the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office says THC rope candies and a marijuana pipe with residue were within reach of three children.
Perez wanting justice and other parents to be aware.
"No matter what, my daughter is not going to be here,” Perez said. “No more kids deserve to die.”
Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Yavapai Silent Witness at 1-800-832-3232. Rewards are available for direct tips leading to arrests of verified fentanyl dealers.