Sanford woman charged with giving boyfriend a deadly dose of heroin

Christina Naomia Rivera, 40, of 210 Patchetts Creek Lane, was charged Thursday with first-degree murder and misdemeanor child abuse and was being held without bond in the Lee County jail.

Deputies went to the Patchetts Creek Lane home on June 5 after getting a call about an unresponsive person. Robert Wayne Mathews, 32, was unconscious on the floor and was taken to Central Carolina Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Rivera told investigators that she had returned from the grocery store earlier that afternoon and believed Mathews was asleep. After picking up their daughter at the school bus stop, she tried to wake him up and realized he was not breathing, she told investigators.

Investigators said she later admitted that she and Mathews had gotten into an argument over drugs and that she had given him an overdose. She said he had collapsed hours before she called for help, authorities said.