The man police said manufactured and sold the drugs that led to the death of a Center Grove area teen has been sentenced to spend 45 years in prison.
Zachary Catron, 26, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to three felony charges of dealing a narcotic drug. He also had pleaded guilty to a charge of dealing a narcotic drug, dealing a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in Marion County.
Catron was sentenced to spend 25 years in prison for his Marion County charges, and another 20 years in prison for the Johnson County case, for a total of 45 years in prison and five years probation.
Prosecutor Brad Cooper wanted Catron in prison for 40 to 50 years, and is pleased with the sentence, he said.
“This was a hardcore drug dealer, who was manufacturing drugs and shipping them to Johnson County and we just wanted him out of commission,” Cooper said.
Catron’s attorney, Rob King, declined to comment.
Both cases stem from the 2014 death of 16-year-old Samuel Motsay who died after taking a synthetic drug called 25I NBOMe, or N-bomb, which police tracked to Catron.
For Motsay’s family, the sentence doesn’t change anything for them, his mother Jeanine Motsay said.
“It doesn’t change what happened for our family. Those circumstances are the same for us,” she said.
This year will mark three years since they lost Sam, and it’s bittersweet as his brother prepares to graduate from Center Grove High School and head to college at Purdue University, milestones Sam was never able to experience, she said.
Their life has been changed. Motsay worked with police and schools to promote awareness of teenage drug use, and is now back in graduate school, pursuing a career change as a mental health counselor, she said.
She wonders what Catron’s life will be like when he is released from prison in the future, and what impact this experience will have had on him, she said.
Catron is already in a state prison, serving his sentence from the Marion County case. He will serve his 20-year sentence from the local case after he has finished the Marion County case.
Catron’s case was the final one to be resolved from the three men arrested at the time.
Police tracked Motsay’s cellphone messages and found that the teens got the drugs they took from Kyle Hazzard and Jordan Adamowicz, and that the drug came from the Indianapolis home of Catron. Indianapolis police then searched Catron’s home and found multiple types of drugs and a drug manufacturing operation. At the time, Catron was already on house arrest in Marion County for a previous drug-related case.
Sentencing him to home detention didn’t work, since Catron was manufacturing drugs and making money off them being sold from his home, Cooper said.
The only choice was to send him to prison, he said.
Hazzard, 24, who had been charged with dealing a synthetic drug or lookalike, died in 2015. Adamowicz, 21, of Greenwood, pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to one year and 180 days in prison, two years on probation and one year of house arrest.
