A Unity man pleaded guilty Thursday to charges he provided the drugs used by two men who fatally overdosed more than two years ago in Derry and Hempfield.

Police said Jesse Hudspath, 27, shared 50 bags of fentanyl-laced heroin with two friends who died in their homes.

Malachai E. Mundorff, 21, of Derry Township and Kenneth Wayne Blystone, 53, of Hempfield both overdosed in November 2017 after consuming the drugs Hudspath purchased from a New Kensington man, police said.

According to court records, Mundorff was found unconscious in the bathroom of his Derry Township home. Police confiscated stamp bags marked “Good Work” from his pockets.

Stamp bags with the same markings were found at Blystone’s Hempfield Towers apartment, where his roommate found him dead the same day, police said.

In court on Thursday, Hudspath pleaded guilty to two counts of drug delivery resulting in death, conspiracy, criminal use of a communication device and three drug-related offenses.

“From the very beginning, he cooperated with police and testified at the preliminary hearing. That eliminated the idea of presenting a viable defense,” said defense attorney Mike Ferguson.

Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar conceded that Hudspath’s testimony at the preliminary hearing against the man who sold him the drugs was valuable, but said Hudspath later refused to be a witness at the trial against his co-defendant.

Hudspath’s guilty plea came without an agreement for a specific sentence. Lazar said he will ask Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio to impose 5- to 10-year prison terms for each of the deaths when Hudspath is sentenced in about three months.

Lazar said Hudspath should await his sentencing in jail.

The judge rejected that request and said Hudspath, pending his sentencing, can remain free on $500,000 bond, which he posted shortly after his arrest in July 2017.

“If he fails to show up for sentencing, things will get a lot worse,” Bilik-DeFazio said.

Hudspath’s co-defendant, Theodore Brown, pleaded guilty last year to lesser charges. Prosecutors said the case against Brown was damaged after Hudspath refused to testify. As a result, Brown, 25, was allowed to plead guilty conspiracy and two-drug related counts. Drug delivery resulting in death charges were dismissed.

Brown was sentenced to serve 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail last August and was immediately paroled. He had served about a year behind bars following his arrest before he was released to house arrest in June 2019.

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