A Pond Fork area resident no longer faces a murder charge in connection with a death that took place in the summer of 2007.

The Boone County Sheriff’s Department was investigating a drug-related death, which claimed the life of Kathy Woodrum.

Drug investigators believed that at the time, Rebecca Sharon Ball, 45, of Gordon, sold methadone tablets to Woodrum.

Law enforcement officials believe ingestion of the drugs led to Woodrum’s death.

However, the murder charges against Ball were dropped and it is speculated that this occurred when prosecutors began to believe they could not prove that the methadone in Woodrum’s bloodstream caused her death.

Instead of the murder charge, Ball admitted last week to a single charge of trafficking in controlled substances. In Boone County Circuit Court, Ball stated on the record that she sold methadone to the victim.

Ball has ended up with a drug sales conviction, while evading the more serious count in the January 2008 indictment.

Law enforcement officials say they were never made aware of the plea agreement.

The Woodrum family, however, had been informed of the plea bargain and had agreed to it.

Boone County Sheriff Rodney Miller said that the first time he was made aware of the plea agreement was when a reporter contacted him for a comment on the case.

"I received an email from a reporter asking for a comment on the plea agreement," Miller said.

"The agreement was news to me, so I called my chief deputy and one of the investigators on the case and they informed me that neither of them had been contacted by the prosecutors office."

Regarding the blood test, Miller maintained that it showed methadone was a factor. "We were told by the West Virginia State Medical Examiners Office that it was definitely a lethal dose," Miller said.

"According to state code, all the drugs have to do is contribute to the death. State law seems clear on this. While we weren’t made part of the final plea agreement against Rebecca Ball, we have no choice to accept it," Miller said.

"It is the job of this department to present facts of criminalconduct to the prosecutors office, and we did our job. It falls to them to prosecute the cases."

The defendant will return to court on Sept. 8 to face sentencing.

At that time, Ball faces a possible prison term of not less than one year and not more than 15 years in custody.