A Placer County judge sentenced a 23-year-old man to 20 years to life in prison for selling Kade Webb, the cousin of San Francisco Giants pitcher Logan Webb, a fentanyl-laced pill that killed him in December 2021.
Superior Court Judge Michael Jones handed down the sentence to Carson Schewe on Thursday. Schewe was convicted by a jury in September of second-degree murder and two counts of possession for sale. The conviction was part of an ongoing campaign by Placer County prosecutors to hit fentanyl dealers with murder charges. Schewe was the county’s third fentanyl-related murder conviction, according to a September news release.
Webb was 20 years old when he purchased what he thought was Percocet (a brand name for a pain medication that includes oxycodone and acetaminophen) from Schewe, as the Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly reported in a comprehensive story on Webb’s death published in May 2022. In actuality, the pill contained fentanyl, and Webb overdosed in a Roseville Safeway immediately after consuming the pill on Dec. 3, 2021, prosecutors prosecutors said.
Kade Webb died just two days before the Giants pitcher’s wedding; police later arrested Schewe. Baggarly’s May 2022 story goes deep on how the death of someone Logan Webb considered “more like a brother” affected his family, and led the pitcher to a crusade against fentanyl.
“These are kids who have so much life ahead of them,” Logan Webb told the Athletic at the time. “Kade’s life was taken because some piece of s—t decided to sell him something that had fentanyl in it. I don’t want to cuss but it makes me so mad. It’s not fair to these kids who are passing away. It’s not fair to their families who want to see them grow up and become parents and live their lives. It’s a sad, sad thing that’s going on.
“I just want people to be aware of it. And I don’t want to see these dealers keep getting away with it, either.”
Outside the courthouse in Auburn on Thursday, Webb again spoke on the death of his beloved cousin.
“There is nothing that prepares you for a loss of someone who is like your brother,” he said, per ABC10. “I am humbled to have a platform to share Kade’s story at a national level to help reach our youth on this crisis. Our kids are struggling, and we need to let them know that it is OK to struggle, but also the dangers that self-medicating can bring. I know that Kade would want his story to help others, and I am honored to take on that mission.”
The “self-medicating” Logan Webb mentioned is apparently in reference to what prosecutors described as Kade Webb’s struggles with addiction. Prosecutors revealed during the trial that Kade Webb purchased the pill that killed him after returning from a rehab stint, something that Kade’s father said Schewe exploited. The dealer seemed to believe that he wouldn’t face consequences for what happened to Kade, as he told Webb’s friends by text that cops don’t investigate overdoses, citing his own best friend and girlfriend, who had each died from a drug overdose within the previous year, according to the Sacramento News & Review.
Logan Webb retweeted a post from California Assemblyman Joe Patterson shortly after Schewe’s sentencing that called the Webb family “heroes for sharing their story.”
Webb then retweeted another post from Patterson, who was responding to a cynical question about Schewe not remaining in prison for the length of his sentence.
“It’s murder,” the assemblyman replied. “There will not be early release unless law changes.”