NEW YORK, NY — A 39-year-old Manhattan woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of second-degree murder after admitting she gave men fentanyl-laced drugs, waited for them to lose consciousness, then robbed them of their belongings — a scheme that killed three people and seriously harmed a fourth across 10 months in upper Manhattan.
Tabitha Bundrick entered her plea in New York State Supreme Court before Judge Kathryn Paek, who is expected to sentence her to 27 years to life in state prison on October 6. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the plea Tuesday, saying the case represented a calculated pattern of predation that claimed the lives of Mario Paullan, 42, Miguel Navez, 39, and Abrihan Fernandez, 34 — three men whose bodies were discovered by family members or friends after Bundrick had already fled with their phones, cash, watches, clothing, and sneakers. Bragg framed the resolution as accountability for what he called a “shocking indifference to human life.”
The deadly pattern began on April 30, 2023, when Bundrick approached Paullan and a companion on a Washington Heights street, first offering to sell them soap and later offering sex in exchange for money, according to prosecutors. She led both men to an empty apartment on West 159th Street that she had broken into, where she gave them drugs she claimed were cocaine — substances that were actually laced with fentanyl. Paullan had never used drugs before, and a recording recovered from his cellphone by federal investigators captured Bundrick repeatedly urging him to take more even as he said he did not want any, according to court documents. Paullan died at the scene. His companion woke the following morning beside Paullan’s body with no memory of the night before and soon required hospitalization after becoming violently ill. Bundrick had already used the surviving man’s stolen cellphone to contact family and friends within two hours of the incident, prosecutors said, and continued using that device for a month.
About five months later, on September 27, 2023, Bundrick met Navez and went back to his apartment on West 158th Street in Washington Heights, where she administered the same fentanyl-laced drugs and robbed him of his electronics, prosecutors said. Navez’s brother came to check on him three days later, on September 30, 2023, and found him dead in his bed. Bundrick used Navez’s stolen cellphone to call her drug dealer and her mother that same day, according to court documents. The third and final killing occurred on February 25, 2024, when Bundrick followed Fernandez from the street into his apartment building on West 144th Street in upper Manhattan. After giving him the fentanyl-laced drugs, she rigged the building’s entrance door so she could move in and out freely, then removed several large bags of stolen property — including Fernandez’s backpack — and departed in a taxi, surveillance cameras captured. Fernandez’s son was later seen on video removing a pair of Fernandez’s sneakers from one of the bags she had brought home. Fernandez’s credit card was used multiple times in the days that followed his death.
Bundrick first came to the attention of Manhattan prosecutors in March 2024, when she was arrested on burglary and grand larceny charges after allegedly being found with Fernandez’s property. When detectives executed a search warrant at her apartment on March 5, 2024, they recovered four pairs of sneakers belonging to the victims, physical evidence that tied Bundrick directly to the separate crimes, according to the district attorney’s office. She was subsequently indicted on a 10-count indictment that included three counts of murder, four counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of second-degree burglary, and one count of second-degree assault — the last count stemming from the drugging of Paullan’s companion, who survived. The investigation was led by the Narcotics Borough Manhattan North Major Case Task Force and the 30th Precinct squad, with the prosecution handled by Assistant District Attorneys Dafna Yoran, Arielle Evans, and Julia Hooks under the supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Lisa DelPizzo. Bragg’s office credited former Detective Manuel Cordova, Detective Raymond Low, and Detective Keisha Lawhorne for their work building the case.
The state guilty plea arrived roughly a year after Bundrick had already resolved a parallel federal case. In September 2025, she pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to two counts of narcotics distribution in connection with the men’s deaths, and was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison — a term federal prosecutors had sought to extend to 30 years, describing Bundrick as “an extraordinarily dangerous individual.” The federal and state sentences will run concurrently, meaning the 13-year federal term will not extend her total time beyond the state prison sentence she now faces. Bundrick’s attorney in her federal case, Kristoff Williams, told the court at the time of that sentencing that drug addiction and a need to numb herself had played a role in the deaths, and that Bundrick “undoubtedly made a poor decision when she shared her drugs with men who were just ‘looking for a good time'” but had not intended to kill anyone. In state court, defense attorneys argued she suffered from mental health issues and was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a framing that stood in contrast to prosecutors’ description of a deliberate, repeated scheme.
“The defendant knowingly killed three people by providing them fentanyl-laced drugs,” Bragg said in a statement following the plea. “As they lay unconscious, she robbed her victims and left them to die. In several instances, the victims’ bodies were found by their friends or family members.” Paullan’s family was present in the courtroom as Bundrick entered her plea, though no public statement from relatives of any of the three victims appeared in the official record. The case fits into a broader effort by Bragg’s office to pursue murder charges in fentanyl-related robbery schemes. In February 2025, a Manhattan jury convicted three men — Jayqwan Hamilton, Robert DeMaio, and Jacob Barroso — of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in a separate scheme in which fentanyl was used to drug nightclub patrons before draining their bank accounts, a plot that also produced fatal overdoses. New York City recorded 3,046 overdose deaths in 2023 alone, with fentanyl present in 80 percent of fatal drug poisonings citywide, according to official health data.
Under New York Penal Law, second-degree murder charges can be brought under a theory of depraved indifference to human life when a defendant recklessly creates a grave risk of death, without requiring prosecutors to prove the defendant specifically intended to kill — a charge that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 to 25 years to life in state prison. Bundrick’s agreed-upon sentence of 27 years to life exceeds that floor. She remains in custody. Formal sentencing is scheduled for October 6 in Manhattan Supreme Court, where Judge Paek is expected to hand down the final term.
