News

Woman’s death may be drug-related

Heroin was injected into 20-year-old Sarah Stellner just hours before she died Tuesday morning in her Langdon Street apartment, and a number of drug-related items were found in her apartment, according to a Madison Police Department search warrant.

Morgan Fenick, Stellner’s 17-year-old roommate from Soldiers Grove, Wis., told a detective she injected Stellner with heroin early Tuesday morning. She admitted to injecting herself with heroin as well and said she had taken the drug in the past.

Detective Sid Woods searched her second-floor apartment at 211 Langdon St., finding a rubber strip on a table, which can be used to restrict blood flow when injecting illegal substances such as heroin, the warrant said.

According to the warrant, a syringe storage container was found, along with used syringes, a box of alcohol prep pads and another shoebox full of insulin syringes.

Heroin is often heated up into a water mixture before injecting, the warrant said, citing a blackened spoon and other “drug-cooking” items discovered in the apartment.

Other drug-related paraphernalia was also found in the apartment.

Stellner’s father, Duane Stellner, said he does not know if heroin was truly the cause of his daughter’s death, and a further toxicology report is underway.

“We’re grieving very much for our daughter,” Duane Stellner said. “My daughter was a good girl.”

Police officers found Stellner in an “unconscious state” as a “pulseless non-breather” at her apartment at approximately 9 a.m. Tuesday. Madison Fire and Rescue attempts to revive Stellner were unsuccessful.

Stellner was pronounced dead at around 9:30 a.m.

University of Wisconsin senior Brent Atherton said he was walking to class when he saw police officers bring a stretcher with Stellner’s body from the apartment to an ambulance.

“They were trying to recover the person, but obviously failing to do so,” Atherton said. “You could tell by the sorrow and the lack of speed with which they moved the stretcher that the person might be gone.”

Coroner John Stanley from the Dane County coroner’s office said it could take weeks before toxicology tests are completed to determine the cause of Stellner’s death, although trauma has been ruled out.

Duane Stellner said parents need to talk to their children and “find out what’s going on in their lives,” adding only those with children will understand the heartbreak of losing a child.

“How she died … I hope it’s a wake-up to other people,” he said.

Sarah Stellner grew up in Gays Mills, Wis. She previously worked at Noodles and Company on State Street and was not a University of Wisconsin student. Stellner had been charged with three underage-drinking offenses in the past three years, according to court records.