A Johnson City man has been sentenced to over 30 years in prison after being found guilty of second-degree overdose murder involving a U.S. Marine.
As per a news release from the First Judicial District Attorney General’s Office, Austin Forkpa received a combined 32-year prison sentence on Tuesday.
Forkpa must serve 24 years at 100% and another consecutive eight years at 30%, the release states.
Forkpa was found guilty of second-degree murder, sale of fentanyl and sale of methamphetamine by a jury verdict in June 2025.
Forkpa’s charges stemmed from the 2021 overdose death of 20-year-old U.S. Marine Bueford Patton III.
The district attorney’s office stated that on September 17, 2021, Patton and his friends were at a bachelor party, preparing to be groomsmen at a wedding the following day.
“During the early morning hours of September 18, they obtained narcotics from Austin Forkpa, AKA ‘Louie5Bandz,'” the release states.
Prosecutors revealed that Forkpa misled Patton and his friends by saying he was selling them Percocet and ecstasy, but he actually provided them with fentanyl and meth.
Patton was found unresponsive on the morning of Sept. 18, 2021. His cause of death was later determined to be consuming a lethal dose of fentanyl.
