A Stevens County man who provided methamphetamine to a woman who later died of a brain hemorrhage  has been sentenced to 51 months in prison.

James W. Swinney, 51, obtained meth and shared it with his girlfriend, Tamara Anderson, 39, in March 2010. The drug caused Anderson's blood pressure to increase, resulting in a hemorrhage in her brain that resulted in her death a few days later.

Swinney pleaded guilty to homicide by controlled substance on March 22 and was sentenced in April.

He filed a motion asking the court to reconsider the sentence, then filed another motion asking to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial.

A judge rejected that request May 10.

Swinney said “getting the meth, was not a me thing, but a we thing,” Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen wrote in his weekly column. “He apparently did not feel he had really done anything wrong when he shared the meth he had obtained with Ms. Anderson.”

A Moses Lake man faces at least four years in prison after being convicted of controlled substance homicide.

A jury deliberated for about an hour Oct. 2 before finding Corey Christman, 30, guilty in the death of Ryan Leonard Mulder, 19, the Grant County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday.

Mulder, of Moses Lake, died on Sept. 10, 2008, three days after he took nine methadone pills given to him by Christman (right). Mulder took the pills at a party in less than two hours.

The Sheriff’s Office has investigated at least five methadone overdose deaths in the last two years, Undersheriff John Turley said.

Christman faces 51 months to 68 months in prison. He’s the first person in Grant County to be charged and tried for controlled substance homicide.

News archives show the charge has been filed at least a few times in Spokane County. Read about one case here.