United States Drug Enforcement Administration

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp on Wednesday sentenced a man who sold the fentanyl that killed a St. Peters, Missouri, woman in 2020 to 18 years and four months in prison.

Nathan Matson, of O’Fallon, Missouri, met with the victim in the driveway of her home on July 4, 2020, and sold her 10 capsules containing fentanyl for $100.

When the victim contacted Matson to ask him what he sold her, Matson lied and said it was morphine, according to a sentencing memorandum. Knowing that she was in distress, Matson could have contacted the victim’s family or called 911 but did not.

The woman’s mother discovered her daughter dead in her bedroom the next day.

The St. Peters Police Department investigated and both Matson and his co-defendant, Jason Post, admitted their role to police.

In court Wednesday, the victim’s sister said Matson “took advantage of someone who trusted him.” She said her sister would still be alive if she’d never met Matson.

The victim’s mother said, “I can’t understand why Nathan Matson would give my daughter a drug that would kill her and drive away, knowing what was going to happen.”

The sentencing memo says Matson tested positive for opiates 25 times since he was charged, suggesting he must have been selling fentanyl to support his own drug addiction even after the 2020 death.

Matson, 27, pleaded guilty in August to a fentanyl distribution charge.

Post, 30, of O’Fallon, Missouri, pleaded guilty in February to aiding and abetting in the distribution fentanyl and was sentenced in July to eight years in prison. He drove Matson to St. Louis to purchase the fentanyl, and then drove Matson to the victim’s house. He was rewarded with five capsules of fentanyl.

“Poisonings involving opioids jumped to more than 80,000 last year and are the leading cause of death for those ages 18 to 45,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael A. Davis, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration division that leads DEA investigations in Missouri. "The gravity of this problem is one reason the DEA and our law enforcement partners, like the St. Peters Police Department, take these investigations so seriously and why long sentences are appropriate.”

DEA investigated this case with the St. Peters Police Department.