BG man charged with manslaughter in drug-related death

Published 8:00 am Monday, February 6, 2023

A Bowling Green man under indictment in one drug case is accused in a new criminal case with being responsible for a teenager’s death from fentanyl poisoning.

Faisl Bakhit Alzharani, 25, is scheduled to appear Monday in Warren Circuit Court to be arraigned on charges of second-degree manslaughter, first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance (fentanyl) and first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor.

Email newsletter signup

Alzaharani is accused in the newer indictment of wantonly causing the death of Jerry Kuhlenhoelter on Nov. 1.

An arrest citation issued Jan. 9 details that the Bowling Green Police Department investigated the 17-year-old’s death, with police learning that Kuhlenhoelter was supplied with M30 pills by another juvenile.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says that many counterfeit pills sold illicitly have an M30 marking to resemble oxycodone, but can contain fentanyl, a more powerful synthetic opioid.

Police interviewed the juvenile on Nov. 2 and were provided with a Snapchat profile of his supplier and communications over the messaging app with the supplier.

The juvenile also reported meeting with that person in a hotel parking lot to buy 30 to 35 M30 pills for $13 each, according to court records.

“I recognized that individual to be Faisl Alzharani from a previous drug-related case involving M30s,” BGPD Detective Hany Elhubisihi said in an arrest citation.

Police later reviewed surveillance footage from the hotel and found video from Oct. 31 that confirmed what the juvenile described, showing the juvenile and Alzharani meeting in the parking lot, the citation said.

Shortly before police charged Alzharani, authorities received an autopsy listing Kuhlenhoelter’s cause of death as fentanyl intoxication, court records show.

Alzharani is a defendant in a separate criminal case in which he is charged with several offenses, including first-degree conspiracy to traffick in a controlled substance (fentanyl), first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance (fentanyl) and other felonies.

Those charges stemmed from an investigation into a Nov. 1 shooting that was reported outside Days Inn on Cumberland Trace.

City police responding to the shooting recovered a handgun from the parking lot and learned that a silver Ford Explorer had recently left the lot.

Officers found out minutes later that a Ford Explorer was involved in a crash at Scottsville Road and Bryant Way, and witnesses told police the driver had run into Longhorn Steakhouse.

Police found Alzharani in a bathroom stall in the restaurant with large amounts of cash in his possession and a handgun that had been concealed in a toilet paper dispenser, according to court records.

A search warrant obtained for the hotel room where Alzharani was reportedly staying at the time of the shooting led to the seizure by BGPD of suspected methamphetamine and fentanyl-laced pills, an arrest citation said.

The gunshot victim in the Nov. 1 incident, Tysean Johnson, 22, of Hopkinsville, would go on to be indicted by a grand jury on charges of first-degree robbery and first-degree criminal conspiracy to traffick in a controlled substance (fentanyl).