Woman faces homicide charge two years after drug death

Nearly two years after four friends overdosed on fentanyl at a house in Grafton, a 40-year-old Saukville woman has been charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with selling the drugs that killed one of them.

Amber A. Williams was charged last week with one count of first-degree reckless homicide in connection with the May 8, 2023, death of 28-year-old Nick Hamilton at a house on Falls Road in Grafton.

Williams is accused of selling drugs to Hamilton at the Railroad Station bar in Saukville, where the friends were celebrating one of their birthdays, according to a criminal complaint and the Grafton Police Department.

Hamilton thought he was buying cocaine, but one of the two bags he purchased from Williams apparently contained more potent fentanyl, which was found in the Grafton home, the complaint states.

Police were called to the Grafton home at about 4:45 a.m. Saturday, May 6, 2023, by a woman who reported three unresponsive people in the house. The woman, who met officers at the door when they arrived, was moving slowly and slurring her words.

Two unconscious people were on a couch. One was Hamilton, who was not breathing and didn’t have a pulse. The other was a woman who was breathing slowly and whose face had been mauled by a dog in the house, apparently while she was unconscious. A third person, who was also breathing slowly, was found in a bathroom, according to the complaint.

Hamilton was taken to Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, where he was placed on life support. He died on May 8, 2023.

The three other people in the home — two women and a man between the ages of 30 and 32 — were given Narcan and survived, Grafton Police Chief Jeff Caponera said during an interview in May 2023.

In the house, officers found a white powdery substance believed to be cocaine on a plate along with a straw and credit card on a kitchen counter. The substance later tested positive for fentanyl, the complaint states.

Milwaukee County Chief Medical Examiner Wieslawa Tlomak reviewed the results of tests and records and opined that fentanyl was a “substantial factor” in Hamilton’s death, according to the complaint.

A detective later interviewed a witness who was at the Railroad Station with Hamilton and his three friends and said one of them asked if anyone had cocaine or knew where they could get some. Hamilton said he did, and one of his friends withdrew money from an ATM at the bar and gave it to him. The witness said Hamilton then approached Williams, who gave him two baggies containing a white powdery substance,  the complaint states.

During a Nov. 7, 2024, John Doe hearing, one of the people who was at the bar and later at the Grafton house testified that she went with Hamilton to his car and used what they thought was cocaine twice with no unexpected side effects. Both times, she said, they used drugs from the same baggie, according to the complaint.

She said that after the group went to the Grafton house, they used drugs from the second baggie. She said she immediately felt different than when she used the drugs from the first baggie and that everyone at the house became unresponsive after using the substance that was found in the kitchen, the complaint states.

Asked Monday why it took nearly two years for a charge to be issued in the case, Ozaukee County District Attorney Benjamin Lindsay referred Ozaukee Press to Richard DuFour, a former Marquette County district attorney and assistant state attorney general who was named special prosecutor for the case in July 2023. DuFour declined to comment on the timeline of the case.

The case will be heard by a judge from outside Ozaukee County because all three judges have recused themselves. Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Sandy Williams, the county’s presiding judge, said the judges disqualified themselves from the case because one of the people involved in it is a relative of a Clerk of Courts employee.

Before recusing himself, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain set Amber Williams’ bail at $100,000 during a hearing on Monday.