TOMBALL, Texas – Erica Russell had just turned 24 when a fatal dose of fentanyl cut her young life short.
“She was just a ray of sunshine,” her mother Denise Russell said from Arizona. “Her life was cut way too short, way unfair.”
After work at a Tomball restaurant in August, Erica Russell went out to celebrate her birthday with friends including her manager, 26-year-old Eric Sembera, court records show.
In the parking lot of a bar they were about to enter, he “asked if she wanted to do a bump,” according to records, she hesitated, then he pulled out some of the powder and “dumped it on her phone.”
Sembera allegedly told Tomball police she inhaled the substance through her nose, before later nodding off.
He rushed her to the emergency room at HCA Houston Healthcare Tomball and the two eventually decided to leave against medical advice, investigators said. He dropped her off at her apartment and no one ever heard from her again.
“Losing my daughter, losing my Erica was, there’s no comparison, like I’m in pain every single day of my life," Denise Russell said.
Her daughter had been in Texas for less than a year.
Erica Russell’s fatal overdose was just the second in the City of Tomball this year.
“This is grippingly frightening for people,” Police Chief Jeffrey Bert told KPRC 2.
The chief said police have responded to dozens of overdose calls in the last three years, more commonly involving young people. The department has administered Narcan, the life-saving overdose reversal drug, at least 35 times since 2022. EMS has administered even more since then, Bert said.
When he became chief in 2020, the department had gyrocopters, he said, but he made the decision to sell those and replace them with a K9 unit.
Princ, the narcotic-sniffing K9, has helped with more than 150 drug-related arrests, a majority of which involve fentanyl, in the last year and a half, Bert said.
And since the beginning of this year, Tomball officers have taken more than 300 grams of drugs off the street which are suspected to be or contain fentanyl.
“From my seat, not just as a cop, but as a dad of four beautiful daughters, I think it’s essential, I think our nation has to recognize and that this is an epidemic,” Chief Bert said of the new Texas law that allows police to pursue criminal action when someone dies from a controlled substance delivered by someone else.
The law took effect in Sept. 2023 and so far has resulted in only a handful of fentanyl murder by delivery charges in Harris County, according to the DA’s office.
Sembera was charged with the first-degree felony last week, nearly four months after Russell’s overdose death.
It’s the first time the City of Tomball has had a murder case in at least four years, Bert said, and it’s the first time his department has had enough evidence to pursue the specific fentanyl-related charge.
"When you look at a map of Tomball, is there one place where people are overdosing?" KPRC 2’s Bryce Newberry asked the chief.
“No, and that’s the fascinating equalizer of fentanyl ... We’ve been to overdoses in our wealthiest neighborhoods, in our poorest apartment complexes,” Chief Bert said.
Records show Sembera has struggled with addiction for years. He is now out of jail on a $100,000 bond.
“As far as the charge of murder by fentanyl ... it’s ridiculous. This is a tragic accident, not a crime ... Unfortunately, he has had troubles with addiction and he’s currently in patient therapy and has been diagnosed with addiction disorder,” Sembera’s defense attorney Mark Thering told KPRC 2. “This wasn’t a drug dealer, it wasn’t somebody who was pushing fentanyl on people.”
Denise Russell insists her daughter wouldn’t have touched fentanyl had she known what the substance was, after the two had discussed the dangers.
“It is a death sentence. If you mess around with fentanyl, there’s a huge chance you’re going to die,” Denise Russell said.
Her daughter’s death came far too soon and took her innocent life, she said.
“My daughter was out there living her life. And it was the best she’s ever done in her life. And I was proud of her,” Denise Russell said. “I haven’t figured out how to live without my daughter.”