Federal felon pleads guilty to selling deadly drugs to Penn Hills man

A Penn Hills man already serving a prison sentence for federal firearms charges pleaded guilty Tuesday to state charges that he sold a fatal dose of fentanyl to another man in 2016.

Dalton Douglas Duschl, 23, pleaded guilty to providing the drugs that led John Shipley to suffer a fatal overdose in his Penn Hills home Oct. 21, 2016.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors in the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office agreed to a sentence of four to 10 years in prison.

Shipley was found dead in his bedroom in the home he shared with his mother, according to the criminal complaint.

Police said surveillance footage from Shipley’s job at the Sheetz on Route 286 in Plum showed Duschl and another man pull into the parking lot minutes before Shipley’s last shift. The footage showed Shipley pay for gas for Duschl and then go inside for the start of his shift.

More security footage from an hour later showed Duschl return to the Sheetz, go inside and hand Shipley what turned out to be a stamp bag of heroin and fentanyl, according to the complaint. In an interview with police two years after Shipley’s death, Duschl admitted he’d given the stamp bags to Shipley, police wrote.

Duschl was already serving a 30-month federal prison sentence after pleading guilty last year to a six-count indictment related to selling stolen guns to undercover officers.

The District Attorney’s Office said Duschl’s state sentence will run consecutive to his federal sentence.