Southern Indiana woman charged with supplying drugs that killed 30-year-old man in July

It wasn’t heroin that killed 30-year-old Cole Deboy, but a deadly mix of fentanyl and a new-to-the-scene animal tranquilizer called xylazine . The Bloomington man bought one-tenth of a gram of the deadly powder hours before his grandmother found him dead July 2.

Makayla Rose Matlock, the 24-year-old woman who has admitted selling Deboy the drugs for $20, is charged with dealing in narcotics and dealing in a controlled substance resulting in death . She faces 20 to 40 years in prison if convicted.

Matlock was arrested Aug. 8, charged with selling Deboy the drugs the night of July 1 at the westside mobile home park where she lived. Matlock became a suspect after police saw Facebook messenger correspondence between the two confirming the drug sale.

A judge issued a warrant for Matlock’s arrest after toxicology results from Deboy’s autopsy confirmed his cause of death: "mixed drug toxicity due to abuse of xylazine and fentanyl.”

According to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case, Matlock told a detective she had sold Deboy a bindle of powder she described as mostly "cut" that had just a small amount of heroin. She said she did so because several days earlier, she had sold Deboy nearly pure heroin and he had overdosed soon after injecting it. Narcan was used to revive him, she said.

The sedative xylazine isn’t an opioid, so an overdose can’t be reversed like it sometimes can be when a person has overdosed on the opioids heroin or fentanyl, another large animal sedative.

Police say Deboy got the drugs from Matlock at 9:25 p.m. July 1. Soon after, he arrived at his grandmother's house on Nancy Street. She said she fed him a meal and last talked to him at 11:30 that night.

Around 4 a.m., she found his lifeless body. A medicine bottle tucked inside one of his boots contained a small amount of powder police thought was heroin before it was analyzed and found to be fentanyl and xylazine.

Xylazine slows the heart rate and causes blood pressure to plummet. Reduced oxygen to skin tissue can result in festering sores and serious infections. Deboy is the fifth person in Monroe County to die from the drug since October.

The affidavit in Matlock’s case says she “stated that she did not hear from Coleman again after the drug deal. Makayla admitted that after she learned … that Coleman had passed away, she had deleted all her Facebook Messenger exchanges with Coleman … she was in fear of someone or law enforcement finding the messages.”

Police did discover them and used the messages as evidence to build their case against Matlock. She also has several pending drug possession charges filed in November 2023 in Monroe Circuit Court.

Deboy’s family was upfront and honest about what ended his life when they penned the obituary published after his death .

“Coleman H. DeBoy, age 30, passed away Tuesday, July 2nd, at home of a drug overdose,” it began. “Cole was a gentle, kind, and loving soul; and he was a perfect storm for becoming addicted to drugs. He suffered from OCD, ADHD, depression, and anxiety. The pain he endured was greater than we even knew. Unfortunately, he searched for relief of his pain through drugs, but they weren’t his friend, and they ultimately took his life.”

He left behind his parents, a daughter, two siblings and his grandmother.

Matlock is jailed at the Monroe County Correctional Center on $50,500 bond. Her initial court hearing was Aug. 12.

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Southern Indiana woman charged with supplying drugs that killed 30-year-old man in July