When Steve and Cheri Filson lost their 29-year-old daughter, Jessica, to fentanyl poisoning, the San Bernardino couple found themselves at the forefront of a national effort to raise public awareness about the deadly drug.
It was early 2020, just before the COVID pandemic paralyzed the country, and much was still unknown about the fentanyl plague that was taking tens of thousands of American lives every year, many of them young people who were consuming counterfeit prescription pills or other narcotics laced with the drug.
“You had to have been in a coma in 2020 to not know to stay six feet away from people and wear a mask to avoid exposure to COVID,” said Steve Filson, a retired San Bernardino police sergeant. “Why the hell didn’t our society know about fentanyl? Why did they not know that 2 milligrams, an amount not much more than a few grains of salt, is enough to kill you?”
The Filsons became activists after Cheri discovered their daughter and her boyfriend, Nicholas Castillo, 30, dead on their living room couch at their Redlands home on Jan. 22, 2020. Police learned the two died after ingesting cocaine spiked with fentanyl they had bought from Jason Saha, 38, of San Bernardino.
Investigators soon discovered that two other men died the same day from the same cocaine they shared with Saha, who also overdosed but survived. Another man who obtained the drugs from Saha also overdosed, but he survived as well.
Federal prosecutors initially charged Saha with four counts of distributing fentanyl resulting in the deaths of Filson, Castillo and San Bernardino residents Donald Kelly, 33, and Cannon Farris, 42. Saha also was charged distributing fentanyl to his fifth victim who survived, identified in court documents only by his initials “D.V.”
Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Saha is expected to plead guilty on Monday, Aug. 12, in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to two counts of knowingly and intentionally possessing fentanyl with the intent to distribute. He faces up to 40 years in prison.
Saha could not be reached for comment. His attorney, federal public defender Young Joon Kim, declined to comment for this story.
Victim families bond
In the aftermath of his daughter’s death, Steve Filson co-founded Victims Of Illicit Drugs, or VOID, in June 2021, to help educate parents and others about the dangers of fentanyl — and pressure lawmakers as well as federal and local prosecutors to do more.
Filson said VOID’s biggest benefactor is Josiah Citrin, a two-star Michelin chef in Los Angeles and owner of the Santa Monica restaurant Citrin and Melisse. His son, Augie, 23, died from fentanyl poisoning in 2020. Every year, Citrin hosts a VOID fundraiser at his restaurant, Filson said.
Other parents who lost children to fentanyl poisoning also signed on with the group. Among them were Santa Clarita resident Jaime Puerta, whose 16-year-old son, Daniel, died from fentanyl poisoning on March 30, 2020; Aliso Viejo resident Amy Neville, whose 14-year-old son, Alexander, died of fentanyl poisoning on June 23, 2020; and Temecula resident Matt Capelouto, whose 20-year-old daughter, Alexandra, died less than a month before Jessica Filson after ingesting half a counterfeit oxycodone pill.
Brandon Michael McDowell, who supplied Capelouto with the drug, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison in February 2023 after agreeing to plead guilty to possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute.
“I do think there is a nucleus there of some core parents that came together. … We do share this bond just because of the timing,” Capelouto said. “I do think it was our efforts combined during that time that certainly led to, at least at the state level, law enforcement pursuing these cases.”
For years, Capelouto has been pushing for the passage of Alexandra’s Law, which would require the courts to advise a person who sells drugs to someone who dies they could be charged with homicide if they repeat such an offense. He said said a version of the proposed legislation has been included in Proposition 36 on the November ballot.
VOID also produced a 21-minute documentary called “Dead on Arrival” that can be viewed on the organization’s website, stopthevoid.org.
“There were 90,000 drug deaths nationwide in 2020, and about half of them were a direct result of fentanyl,” Filson said. Those numbers continued increasing in subsequent years, with 112,000 drug deaths in 2023, 75% of them attributed to fentanyl, he said..
“It’s the equivalent to a fully loaded 737 going down every day,” Filson said. “Two-hundred people-plus a day are dying from fentanyl.”
State, federal cases
The activist push for more awareness coincided with the campaign for tougher laws against those who peddle fentanyl. As a result, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office led the national charge in holding fentanyl dealers accountable when it filed its first fentanyl-related murder charge against then-21-year-old Eastvale resident Joseph Michael Costanza in February 2021.
The district attorney’s office now has 22 active fentanyl murder cases with 25 defendants and 23 victims. Since 2021, it has filed 36 cases total which resulted in three jury trials, three convictions and 10 plea agreements. One defendant died of a fentanyl overdose in custody while awaiting trial.
Other district attorney’s offices, including San Bernardino County, began following suit. And in January 2023, local and federal law enforcement officials in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties announced they were partnering in a public outreach campaign to help combat the deadly fentanyl epidemic.
Since 2020, federal prosecutors have filed charges in upwards of 70 fentanyl-related death cases, resulting in at least 20 convictions.
Details of Saha case
Information gleaned from Saha’s plea agreement and interviews with San Bernardino police shed more light on the events that occurred over a two-day period in January 2020 leading to the deaths of Jessica Filson and the three others.
According to the agreement, Saha went to the Third Street Tavern in Highland on Jan. 21 to sell controlled substances. There, he met a woman who also happened to be at the tavern selling controlled substances.
Saha bought cocaine off the woman, and the two went to near where she lived in San Bernardino County, where Saha purchased more of the cocaine from her. The two, “aiding and abetting each other,” sold the fentanyl-laced cocaine to Filson and Castillo.
Filson and Castillo subsequently died of “acute fentanyl toxicity,” according to the plea agreement.
After departing ways with the woman, Saha then sold more of the drug to the man in identified as “D.V.” in the plea agreement. He ingested the drug and overdosed, but survived.
Saha then wound up at an apartment complex in the 1400 block of East Pumalo Street in San Bernardino, where he, along with Kelly and Farris, ingested the same fentanyl-laced cocaine. Saha, according to San Bernardino police, passed out for a long duration and awoke to find his friends dead.
“From what we understand, he was out cold for some time,” Lt. Jennifer Kohrell said.
Saha called his mother, who then frantically called 911 at 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 23 to report what her son had told her, San Bernardino police Capt. Nelson Carrington said.
“Her son called her saying, ‘everyone was dead in the house,’ ” Carrington said. “He was incoherent and said he doesn’t remember what happened, and that everyone was deceased.”
Paramedics pronounced Kelly and Cannon dead on arrival at 7 a.m. Saha was taken to the hospital by ambulance, Carrington said. Kelly and Farris, according to federal prosecutors, died of fentanyl toxicity.
Investigators quickly tied the deaths of Cannon and Kelly to the deaths of Filson and Castillo in Redlands, and established the link between Saha and the woman who supplied the cocaine to him, Kohrell said.
“It was just by luck that Saha did not die, and was able to provide information to identify where the narcotics came from,” Kohrell said.
The female cocaine supplier has not been charged with any crimes in the case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Office spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy said he could not comment further on her.
Moving on
Beyond their activism, life for the Filsons nowadays is centered on raising their 7-year-old granddaughter, Elara. “She gives me purpose,” Cheri Filson said. “She’s keeping me going.”
The Filsons describe Elara as a good student who gets A’s and B’s on her report cards and outstanding marks for citizenship and being a team player.
For now, the Filsons tell Elara that her mother and Castillo, who was not the girl’s biological father, drank poison and died.
They know, however, that some day they will have to tell Elara the truth. “She’s too young to understand anything else,” Cheri Filson said. “I get a little worried sometimes. I hope she stays on track.”
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Steve Filson said no amount of time Saha serves in prison will fill the gaping hole in his, Cheri’s and Elara’s lives.
“Saha’s distribution of narcotics resulted in the loss of my wife’s only child and our granddaughter’s mother,” he said. “He also robbed three other families of their loved ones, and for what? But for fentanyl and Saha’s distribution of it, four lives would still be with us.”
While Saha’s imprisonment can’t undo what he did, Filson said it will give him time to reflect.
“We will remain in our own prison for the rest of our lives,” he said. “Saha will one day again experience freedom.”