Lake Elsinore Man To Stand Trial For Second-Degree Murder

LAKE ELSINORE, CA — A felon accused of supplying a lethal dose of fentanyl to a 34-year-old Lake Elsinore man must stand trial for second-degree murder, a judge ruled Monday.

James Dylan Hall, 38, of Lake Elsinore was arrested in 2022 following a three-month Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigation into the death of Jacob Soto.

At the end of a preliminary hearing Monday, Superior Court Judge John Monterosso found there was sufficient evidence to bound Hall over for trial on the murder count. The judge scheduled a post-preliminary hearing arraignment for Nov. 8 at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta and left the defendant's bail set at $1 million.

Hall is being held at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.

According to sheriff's Sgt. Sean Liebrand, on the night of Sept. 5, 2022, deputies and paramedics were sent to a residence in the 33100 block of Windward Way to investigate reports of an unconscious man.

Liebrand said paramedics pronounced Soto dead at the scene, and the ensuing autopsy determined he had been the victim of "fentanyl poisoning."

"Over the next several months, the investigation was relentlessly worked, and ... Hall was identified as being the suspect responsible for selling the fentanyl that killed Soto," the sergeant said.

The probationer was taken into custody without incident on Nov. 30, 2022, in Wildomar.

The circumstances behind the transaction between Hall and the victim, including how they became acquainted, were not disclosed.

Court records show that Hall has prior convictions for possession of controlled substances, burglary, petty theft and smuggling drugs into a correctional facility.

Since February 2021, more than two dozen individuals countywide have been charged with murder in connection with fentanyl poisonings.

In November, prosecutors closed the books on the county's first fentanyl murder case to go before a jury, culminating in the conviction of 34-year-old Vicente David Romero, who was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the 2020 death of a Temecula woman. District Attorney Mike Hestrin said it was the first fentanyl murder conviction in the state.

According to public health statistics, there were 550 known fentanyl- related fatalities countywide in 2023, a 9% increase from 2022, when there were 503.

Fentanyl is manufactured in overseas labs, principally in China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which says the drug is smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by cartels.

Fentanyl is 80-100 times more potent than morphine and can be mixed into any number of street narcotics and prescription drugs, without a user knowing what he or she is consuming. Ingestion of only two milligrams can be fatal.