TARRANT COUNTY (WBAP/KLIF News) – Jury selection began in a Tarrant County courtroom Tuesday morning for the ex-Los Angeles Angels employee charged in connection with the overdose death of starting pitcher Tyler Skaggs in a Southlake hotel room.
Former Angels Communications Director Eric Prescott Kay is accused of giving Skaggs’ the oxycodone that led to this death and is charged with conspiracy to distribute a mixture containing detectable amounts of fentanyl.
Only July 1, 2019, Southlake Police received a 911 call stating that Skaggs, 27, had been found dead in his room at the Southlake Town Square Hilton.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Skaggs had choked on his own vomit and had a mixture of ethanol, fentanyl and oxycodone in his system at the time of his death.
It was later found that if Skaggs had not had the fentanyl he would not have died.
Federal prosecutors said Kay initially denied knowing whether Skaggs was a drug user.
However, according to the indictment, a search of Skagg’s phone revealed text messages from June 30 suggesting that he’d asked Kay to stop by his room with pills that night.
Investigators later learned that Kay allegedly told a colleague that he had visited Skaggs room the night of his death.
During the announcement of the charges against Kay in late 2020, then U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox said the defendant had a history with pills.
“For years, he’d allegedly been distributing these blue M30s, dubbed blue boys, to Skaggs and to possibly others,” she said.
Five major league pitchers are on the government’s witness list for the trial. If convicted, Kay faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
He’s pleaded not guilty.
In June 2021, Skagg’s family filed lawsuits in Texas and California over Tyler’s death. The lawsuits accuse the Los Angeles Angels, former communications director Tim Mead and Kay with negligence.
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