A federal jury has convicted a 29-year-old Memphis man of distributing the fentanyl-laced drugs that killed three people found unconscious on a Collierville back porch in June 2024. Darian Glover was found guilty on three counts of distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death following a four-day trial.
Collierville police officers responded to an overdose call at a home just after 1:51 a.m. on June 21, 2024, and found two women and one man unconscious on the back porch, according to trial evidence released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee. Paramedics attempted to revive the three victims with Narcan, but all three were pronounced dead at the scene. A medical examiner determined that the victims died from toxic levels of fentanyl, according to Action News 5.
Investigators say one of the victims, identified in court records as M.P., called Glover seeking cocaine before meeting him around 5:30 p.m. on June 20, 2024, at a gas station on Bartlett Road in Bartlett. A witness told police they saw Glover sell what looked like cocaine to the victim. From there, M.P. drove Glover to a liquor store on Summer Avenue in Memphis and then to Glover's home, establishing a timeline of less than nine hours before officers received the fatal overdose call, per the U.S. Department of Justice.
Phone Records Traced the Sale Back to Glover
The Collierville Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration jointly investigated the case, tracing calls to Glover's phones that confirmed the sale of fentanyl-laced drugs. A federal grand jury in the Western District of Tennessee had returned an indictment against Glover on April 10, 2025, roughly sixteen months before his trial conviction this week. Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy K. Cornejo prosecuted the case following the joint investigation by the DEA's Louisville Field Division and Collierville police.
U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant announced the verdict for the Western District of Tennessee. The station's report notes Glover now faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years and up to life in prison, along with at least three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $1,000,000. Under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C), federal law mandates that minimum sentence whenever the unlawful distribution of a Schedule I or II controlled substance results in death, according to The Law Office of Matthew Galluzzo, PLLC. Glover is scheduled for sentencing on November 13, 2026, before Judge Thomas L. Parker in United States District Court.
A Broader Fentanyl Crackdown in Shelby County
Following Glover's 2025 indictment, Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane emphasized that suburban departments rely heavily on joint interdiction operations with the DEA to disrupt fentanyl supply chains originating outside municipal borders. DEA Louisville Field Division Special Agent in Charge Jim Scott said after Glover's conviction that federal authorities prioritize fatal fentanyl distribution cases to ensure dealers face full legal accountability for poisoning local communities.
The case fits a pattern of federal prosecutors in Western Tennessee targeting dealers who distribute fentanyl disguised as other drugs. In March 2025, a Memphis gang member was sentenced to 87 months for trafficking fentanyl-laced pills pressed to resemble 30mg oxycodone tablets.
Tennessee's Overdose Rate Remains Far Above the National Average
CDC data published in May 2026 showed Tennessee recorded 2,499 drug overdose deaths in 2024, an age-adjusted mortality rate of 34.6 per 100,000 residents, nearly 52% higher than the national rate, according to USAFacts. That local disparity persists even as total U.S. overdose deaths fell 24%, from 105,007 in 2023 to 79,384 in 2024, driven largely by declines in synthetic opioid fatalities nationwide, per KFF.
