A trial date was set in the case of a Cathedral City man suspected in the fentanyl poisoning death of a then-22-year-old man on New Year’s Day two years ago.
A murder trial for Riley Jacob Hagar, 27, will get underway at the Larson Justice Center in Indio on Sept. 6, according to the case report.
Hagar was arrested Aug. 31, 2022, by the Riverside County Fire Department’s Overdose Death Investigations and Narcotics Unit, according to Sgt. Ryan Marcuse with the sheriff’s department.
Marcuse said deputies responded to a call in Rancho Mirage about an unresponsive male on Jan. 1, 2022, around 12:30 p.m., in the 69000 block of Highway 111, where Travis O’Brien was found dead due to fentanyl poisoning.
Hagar was subsequently identified as the suspect who allegedly sold the fatal dose of fentanyl that killed O’Brien, according to Marcuse.
He was booked into the John J. Benoit Detention Center in Indio, where he remains held without bail.