Taylor Klein’s Father Fights For Justice

RALEIGH — For three years, David Klein fought to have his son’s death from an overdose of methadone and crack cocaine recognized as a crime. On Monday, it was. Tamitha Gilchrist Hicks, the woman who sold 18-year-old Taylor Klein a fatal drug combination, was sent to prison for at least 10 years after she pleaded guilty in a Wake County courtroom to a second-degree murder charge and eight counts of drug trafficking. Hicks’ guilty plea came after a long, bitter and frustrating fight by David Klein to have the facts surrounding his son’s April 2006 death investigated. Klein said Wake Sheriff’s Office investigators refused to consider criminal charges in the case, an assessment that Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison denies. “They all kept telling me there was no crime committed,” Klein said. Harrison said his detectives didn’t ignore the case — it was that they couldn’t unearth enough evidence to initially charge Hicks. Ultimately, it would take Klein’s hiring of a private attorney and private investigator 10 months after his son’s death — as well as a direct appeal to the Wake District Attorney’s Office — before Hicks was indicted on a second-degree murder charge in May 2008, two years after Taylor Klein’s death. Although not often used, North Carolina law allows for police and prosecutors to level a second-degree murder charge against those who provide illegal drugs to a person who later dies from those drugs. “There’s no question in my mind, if David hadn’t pushed this, if …
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