Trials
BREAKING
Purvis Enters Plea in Overdose Death
Whitney Purvis, 34, entered an Alford plea Friday in Floyd County, Georgia, to involuntary manslaughter, sale of fentanyl, and illegal use of a communication facility in the overdose death of John M. Harris, 37, of Rome. She has not been sentenced.
By Crime Talk Network Staff Writer ·
An Alford plea is a guilty plea. She can still say she did not do it, and a judge can still sentence her on the three counts. Harris is dead. Forty-four years is the top of the exposure written into the plea papers, not a term anyone has imposed, and no sentencing date is on the calendar.
Whitney Purvis, 34, entered an Alford plea Friday in Floyd County, Georgia, to involuntary manslaughter, sale of fentanyl, and illegal use of a communication facility. The case is the February 17, 2025, overdose death of John M. Harris, 37, of Rome. An Alford plea is a guilty plea for sentencing. She did not admit the acts, and she acknowledged the evidence was strong enough that a jury would likely convict her. She also waived the right to take the plea back.
She had been facing seven counts and pleaded to three. The plea was filed two days after a judge ruled that statements she made to investigators at her July 2025 arrest could be used at trial. A jury had been set to start Monday. No sentencing date has been set. The plea agreement puts her exposure at up to 44 years.
An arrest warrant accused Purvis of supplying Harris with fentanyl mixed with xylazine, a combination sold as tranq, and said he died of a toxic overdose. She was arrested July 7, 2025, by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local officers. Purvis appeared on the first season of MTV's "16 and Pregnant."
The plea is the conviction on those three counts. The sentence is still ahead.
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