ROANE COUNTY, Tenn. — A Rockwood man was charged after a woman died in August 2021 due to a drug overdose, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday.
The TBI said Ashley Nichole Cressel was pronounced dead at a hospital after she was found unresponsive at her workplace in Cumberland County. The TBI said she died from "acute methamphetamine toxicity."
TBI drug agents joined Cumberland County Sheriff's Office deputies in January 2022 to investigate her death. The agents later identified her then-boyfriend Michael Kerley as the person who gave her the drugs, according to TBI.
Kerley was indicted on Jan. 8 with a county of second-degree murder and a county of manufacture, sale or delivery of schedule 2 narcotics, according to TBI. He was arrested by deputies and booked into the Cumberland County jail on a $500,000 bond.
