BERLIN – The following represents the contents of a press release from Worcester County State’s Attorney Kris Heiser’s office.
On February 16, 2023, Leigh Ann Williams, age 35, of Willards, Maryland became the last of 2 co-defendants to be sentenced for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl by the Honorable Beau H. Oglesby of the Worcester County Circuit Court. Williams was sentenced to 10 years in the Division of Correction with all but 5 years suspended and placed on 3 years of supervised probation upon release for her role in the distribution of fentanyl in September 2021, which resulted in the death of 37-year-old Christopher Price of Berlin, Maryland. Previously, in May of 2022, her co-defendant, Bryan Zimmerman, age 35, of Ocean City, Maryland, was convicted of distribution of fentanyl for the same incident, and in July 2022 was sentenced to serve 20 years in the Division of Correction, with all but 10 years suspended and placed on 5 years of supervised probation upon his release. The charges resulted from an investigation which began on September 25, 2021 after Mr. Price, employee of an Ocean City hotel, failed to show up for work.
Hotel employees made entry into Price’s apartment, discovered him deceased, and immediately contacted police. Ocean City Police Department detectives assigned to the case obtained cell phone records which revealed that Price had been in recent contact with Bryan Zimmerman. After extensive analysis of digital evidence, detectives were able to establish that Zimmerman and Leigh Ann Williams traveled in a vehicle together to sell Price what Price believed to be Xanax. Detectives also learned that Zimmerman had been arrested 2 days prior for possession of fentanyl. Autopsy results of Price indicated his cause of death was fentanyl and ethanol intoxication, and as a result, Zimmerman was indicted by the Worcester County Grand Jury in November, 2021. Williams was charged for her role in the incident on April 5, 2022, and she later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.