Fort Worth man arrested at U.S.-Mexico border in 2024 fentanyl overdose death
Customs and Border Patrol officers in Laredo arrested a Fort Worth man wanted in connection with a 2024 fentanyl overdose death, officials said.
Hugo Francisco Garza Munoz, 25, is accused of supplying the fentanyl-laced Xanax pills that killed a 25-year-old former college baseball player last June, according to an affidavit supporting his arrest. Munoz, a U.S. citizen, was arrested Tuesday, Aug. 26 at the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge in Laredo as he traveled aboard a commercial bus entering the United States, CBP officials said. He had left for Mexico in November of 2024.
Medical personnel responded to the home of Rhett Hudson Halstead on the afternoon of June 13, 2024, according to the affidavit. Halstead was pronounced deceased in his bedroom at that time and investigators found lines of a white powder substance on his desk. The substance later tested positive for fentanyl, police said, and the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled Halstead’s death to be the result of mixed drug toxicity.
Detectives reviewed chats from Halstead’s phone and found “numerous” narcotics-related messages dating back to June of 2023 between Halstead and Munoz, police said.
A former roommate of Halstead’s told police that he had seen Munoz sell pills to Halstead several times while the two lived together, and that Munoz was the only person he knew to sell drugs to Halstead, according to the affidavit. On the day of Halstead’s death, the former roommate noticed that his location had been near Munoz’s home.
Further examination of Halstead and Munoz’s text messages uncovered an exchange between the two about the purchase of the fatal pills on the day of Halstead’s death, police said. Munoz sent Halstead a video of him placing a baggie inside the rain gutter of Halstead’s parents’ home, which Halstead later confirmed he had retrieved, according to the affidavit.
Munoz is charged with murder under a relatively new state law that allows for distributors of fentanyl-laced drugs to face consequences for any deaths caused by the drugs. Tarrant County sent its first defendant to prison under the law in October of last year.
Halstead had a “charismatic ability to make anyone feel their worth,” his family wrote in an online obituary. He received baseball scholarships to Garden City Community College in Kansas and Master’s University in California, and, when not on the baseball diamond, enjoyed the beach, writing and listening to music.
