Grand jury declines to indict girlfriend on murder in fentanyl death of Tarrant ex-judge
A grand jury has declined to indict on murder a former Tarrant County judge’s girlfriend who law enforcement authorities allege brought fentanyl pills to the ex-jurist. He died last year in Grapevine of an overdose.
Kami Ludwig was charged in February in the killing of William Shane Nolen, who was a former associate judge in the 323rd District Court.
Ludwig purchased fentanyl-laced pills and supplied them to Nolen, Grapevine police alleged in a case built in part upon Ludwig’s cellphone records that a detective reviewed under a search warrant.
Ludwig, 35, was indicted on Wednesday on two counts of possession of a controlled substance.
The indictment action means that fewer than nine grand jurors concluded there is probable cause to believe Ludwig committed murder.
“We are grateful to the grand jury for their careful review of this case, which led to the decision not to indict my client on a fentanyl murder charge,” Tiffany Burks, Ludwig’s defense attorney, wrote in a statement addressed to the press. “Any drug overdose resulting in death is a tragedy. We continue to extend our deepest condolences to the friends and family mourning the loss of former Judge Shane Nolen.”
A state law that went into effect last year makes a person who knowingly distributes fentanyl to someone who dies from exposure to the synthetic opioid eligible for prosecution on murder.
Nolen was in November 2019 fired from the court, which handles juvenile matters, because, as a defendant in a lawsuit filed in Denton County by the Department of Family and Protective Services, he violated court orders.
In the master bedroom of his house in the 4100 block of Mapleridge Drive, Nolen died in bed with white foam around his nose and mouth, Grapevine police said. Ludwig reported the overdose to police about 4:45 a.m. on Nov. 20.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded the cause of Nolen’s death was mixed drug toxicity. The office identified the drugs as fentanyl and the antidepressant trazodone. Nolen was 47.
A blue, M-30 fentanyl-laced pill was on stairs leading to the second floor and pills believed to be Xanax were strewn about on the floor adjacent to the bed in which Nolen’s body was found, according to the affidavit supporting the arrest warrant in the case. Next to Ludwig’s purse on the vanity in the master bathroom was a cut straw, powder residue, a small plastic bag of a substance believed to be cocaine and other plastic baggies holding pills that resembled M-30s, according to the affidavit.
Nolen’s 9-year-old son was alone inside the house when authorities arrived.
Grapevine police said they recovered from the former judge’s house .614 grams of cocaine, 4.08 grams of fentanyl, .348 grams of oxycodone and 7.7 grams of generic Xanax.
Ludwig was released on a bond. The district attorney’s office alleged Ludwig submitted a urine sample that tested positive for the use of norfentanyl on March 28 and submitted on Feb. 13 a sample that tested positive for the use of a substance not identified in a bond violation notification.
