The Crossville Chronicle reports that Diana Grosso, a 65-year-old woman from Otisville, New York, was sentenced to three years in prison for reckless homicide in the drug overdose death of Julie Meade, a 59-year-old from Cumberland County. Initially charged with second-degree murder after a June 2020 indictment, Grosso faced legal challenges due to difficulties in proving the elements of murder and the specific drugs involved in Meade’s death on July 12, 2018.

According to the case details, the Meades had traveled to New York, where Julie purchased what she believed was cocaine from Grosso. Days later, back in Tennessee, Julie became unresponsive after using the substance, and despite her husband Mitchell’s initial assumption of a blood sugar issue, she was later found not breathing and died in the hospital from acute fentanyl toxicity. A recorded phone call revealed Grosso’s admission to selling the substance, though she claimed in a pre-sentence report that Mitchell was responsible for not doing enough to save his wife.

Mitchell, in his victim impact statement, expressed profound loss and accused Grosso of knowingly selling fentanyl without warning. With no prior criminal record, Grosso, a Range 1 offender, pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in March and was ordered by Judge Gary McKenzie to serve the full three-year sentence, though she has already served most of the required time in county jail.