Alleged drug dealer charged with murdering Sarah Tillman pleads not guilty
(KRON) — A Bay Area man pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder on Wednesday in connection to the death of 29-year-old Sarah Tillman.
Phillip Thei Ng, 56, of Daly City, is accused of selling drugs to Tillman before she died from a fentanyl overdose inside her San Mateo apartment in 2023.
After Ng entered his plea, a San Mateo County judge revoked his $50,000 bail and ordered Ng into custody on a no bail status Wednesday. Ng was ordered to return to court on September 5 for a preliminary hearing.
Tillman graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology, court records show. She earned a master’s degree in medical science at the University of Southern California in 2021, her LinkedIn page states. Most recently, she worked as a communications manager for a Silicon Valley pharmaceutical company.
San Mateo Police Department officers found Tillman dead at home on May 6, 2023. Investigators said they found text messages documenting the alleged drug dealer’s communications with buyers including Tillman.
The victim met Ng and began buying drugs from him in early 2023, prosecutors said. In March of 2023, Tillman was revived with Narcan, a life saving opioid-reversing treatment, after a near-fatal overdose. “(Tillman) warned defendant he had nearly killed her with the drugs he sold her,” prosecutors wrote.
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Just two months later, Ng sold Tillman drugs laced with fentanyl again that killed her, the suit states.
Her parents believe their daughter did not know that the drugs contained fentanyl, according to a wrongful death civil lawsuit. The lawsuit states that Tillman died from a mixture of fentanyl and bromazepam with amphetamine.
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