Serial Criminal Charged With First Degree Murder For Overdose Death

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Daytona Beach, FL - A 26-year-old man who's been in the Volusia County Jail since April 26 for selling fentanyl to an undercover officer and trafficking in heroin, is now charged with first-degree murder for causing an overdose death. John Mai is the second person to be charged with first-degree murder for selling the drugs used in a fatal overdose in the past 11 months in Daytona Beach.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri talked about the case in a press conference yesterday (July 19). Mai was indicted by a Volusia County grand jury earlier in the day on the murder charge in the death of 22- year-old Samantha Stefanczak.

On March 24, 2019, DBPD discovered Stefanczak and another person unresponsive in a vehicle near the corner of North Beach Street & Michigan
Avenue. The person found in the driver’s seat of the vehicle was revived by first responders. Stefanczak did not revive even after being administered Narcan at the scene. She was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center for treatment from. She died on March 29.

The cause of death by the Medical Examiner is listed as an opiod (Fentanyl) overdose. Investigators believe Stefanczak meant to inject heroin into her body that night instead of the straight Fentanyl found in her system during the autopsy. Detectives later identified Mai as the person who sold the drugs and turned that information over to the grand jury.

Mai completed a nine-year prison sentence for vehicular homicide that happened when he was 17 years old. He was released in January, 2019 and has been arrested five times in Volusia County since that time.Mai was arrested three separate times in March and twice in April on various charges, mostly drug- related and traffic-related.

DBPD received a grand jury indictment in a similar case in August 2018. That was 23-year-old Justin Torrence from an overdose death in October 2017.

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