Homicide charge filed in 2021 Port drug death

A 41-year-old woman accused of providing fentanyl to a Port Washington resident who overdosed twice in as many days before dying in 2021 hours after talking to her husband about getting help for her addiction was charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court last week with first-degree reckless homicide.

Rebecca R. Schaap, who was bound over for trial on the felony charge during a preliminary hearing on Monday, Aug. 10, is being held in jail in lieu of $30,000 bail.

The Ozaukee County jail, in fact, is where Schaap, who currently has a Milwaukee address but had previously lived in Ozaukee County, first met the woman she is accused of supplying with drugs.

According to a criminal complaint, Port Washington police officers were called to a home on Lakeview Avenue on Friday, March 19, 2021, for a report of a woman who may have been experiencing a drug overdose.

The woman was given naloxone, a medication that reverses the effect of opioids, and recovered, indicating that she had, in fact, overdosed on drugs.

She was taken to a hospital. No drugs or drug paraphernalia were found in the house.

Officers were called back to the home the next day — Saturday, March 20, 2021 ­— for a report of the woman overdosing again. Naloxone was administered, but this time the woman could not be revived and died.

An autopsy performed on March 22, 2021, indicated that the cause of death was acute mixed drug intoxication caused by fentanyl and three prescription drugs.

The woman’s husband told officers that on the day of her death they were having a good morning, talking freely about how best to get the woman the help she needed to overcome her addiction, the complaint states.

At about 3 p.m., the woman’s husband said, he went to a store after she told him she would be OK at home alone. He returned at about 4:15 p.m. and saw his wife was asleep on the couch. At 5 p.m., he noticed she was breathing heavily as if she was in a deep sleep. He told officers he didn’t think his wife had used drugs but was still concerned because of her past drug use and addiction to prescription pain medication, according to the complaint.

Three hours later, the woman’s husband said, he saw that the blanket on top of his wife was no longer moving with her breathing, so he checked her pulse and, after not detecting one, called 911, according to the complaint.

The woman’s phone was seized as evidence, and as officers were examining it at the police station they found a packet of a powdery substance and a snorting straw in the phone’s case. The powder tested positive for fentanyl, the complaint states.

Officers identified Schaap as a suspect and noted that she and the woman who died of the overdose were in the Ozaukee County jail together in 2018.

Authorities confirmed Schaap’s phone number and found three days of text message exchanges between her and the victim on the victim’s phone that began on March 17, 2021 — two days before her first overdose — with Schaap initiating the exchange by asking, “Hey girl how have you been!!!” according to the complaint.

The exchange continued with Schaap writing that she has been sober for more than 18 months, although she almost fell off the wagon, and happened to be “sitting on sum very decent (expletive) and it seems wrong to throw it away,” the complaint states.

Schaap lamented the fact she was ripped off by her supplier and didn’t have a job.

The woman who overdosed encouraged Schaap repeatedly to “stay strong” and remain sober, said she also had been sober “since me and you did it 18 months ago” and asked, “How much do you have?” according to the complaint.

Schaap replied, “Y u interested?”

The women texted each other the next day and made tentative plans to meet the following day.

On March 19, 2021 — the day of the woman’s first overdose — she texted Schaap between 7:08 and 7:22 a.m. to ask if she was home. Schaap replied that she would be home in five to 10 minutes, and the woman replied that she would be there then, the complaint states.

During a March 30, 2021, interview, Schaap confirmed for authorities that she met the woman while they were both being held in the Ozaukee County jail in 2018, then claimed she had no contact with her since being released from jail in August of that year, according to the complaint.

Schaap went on to say that she never called or texted the woman but used Facebook to communicate with her, although that was months earlier. Schaap said she knew the woman was a drug addict, then admitted that in 2019 she sold her heroin and gabapentin, a prescription medication used to treat seizures and nerve pain, which was one of the drugs found in the woman’s system after her death, the complaint states.

When authorities confronted Schaap with the text messages they found on the woman’s phone, Schaap said the woman came to her home on the morning of March 19, 2021, and did a “little line of heroin.” Schaap said she refused to let the woman pay for it and did not let her leave with any, adding that she snorted some of the heroin with the woman and tested positive at a methadone clinic the next day for cocaine and fentanyl, according to the complaint.

Schaap was interviewed again on Feb. 27, 2022, and when questioned by authorities she said the woman must have taken drugs from her house without her knowing because she was so high, adding, “I realized there was a lot less than there should have been and just looked at the theft as a loss,” the complaint states.

Schaap said she tried contacting the woman to see if she was alright after receiving a Facebook message from the woman’s son telling Schaap to stay away from his mother.

During Monday’s court hearing, Schaap pleaded not guilty to the homicide charge she faces.

First-degree reckless homicide is punishable by a maximum 25 years in prison followed by 15 years of extended supervision.