Olympia boy died from overdose months after narcotics team suspected dealer
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Prosecutors dropped homicide and related charges over evidentiary concerns.
- Detectives surveilled Nguyen and obtained Snapchat records before teen's death.
- The victim’s family criticized the plea agreement and urged broader accountability.
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Olympia man accused of dealing drugs convicted in connection to 2024 teen overdose death
Son Nguyen has been convicted of second-degree manslaughter and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance in connection to the 2024 overdose death of Avery Ping, 16, in Olympia.
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Thurston County detectives suspected Son Nguyen, 34, sold drugs to children in late 2024. However, Olympia officers only arrested him on Jan. 6, 2025, almost three weeks after a 16-year-old fatally overdosed on a drug Nguyen delivered to his family home.
Last month, Superior Court Judge Christopher Lanese sentenced Nguyen to 34 months in prison for second-degree manslaughter and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance — two crimes specific to what happened to the teenager, Avery Ping.
The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office previously charged Nguyen with controlled substance homicide while armed with a firearm and other related drug and firearm charges. Prosecutors dropped those charges in favor of a plea deal.
Ultimately, Nguyen was not prosecuted for allegedly selling drugs to a wider clientele of children.
After the March 11 sentencing hearing, Prism Dawn McCabe, Avery Ping’s mother, said she felt disappointed by the plea deal and sentence, saying it did not match the “vast” scope of wrongdoing Nguyen inflicted on the community. Devon McCabe, the teen’s stepfather, said he felt frustrated by institutions “falling short” for children.
Aaron Ping, Avery Ping’s father, sat out the March 11 sentencing hearing in protest. Prism Dawn McCabe read aloud a statement from Aaron Ping in his stead.
“I am not present at this hearing because I cannot sit in a courtroom and be forced to stay silent about what I know,” Aaron Ping wrote. “Evidence that would show the full scope of what happened has been excluded from these proceedings. That has compounded the trauma I have carried through this case.”
My son is dead, and what haunts me is that other families in this community will not receive from this case the warning I wish I had before Avery died. That is the source of my grief: what remains hidden and what may happen again.”
The Sheriff’s Office got a tip about Nguyen in October 2024
An anonymous person tipped Detective Jordan Goss of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office to an “unknown suspect” who was selling drugs to minors over Snapchat in October 2024, according to a police report. The suspect allegedly sold drugs under the account, “travisolympia.”
Goss was part of the TCSO Narcotics Task Force at the time. He obtained records for the Snapchat account with a search warrant and observed “numerous photographs and communications” suggesting the owner was selling drugs, per the report.
Using “location data and additional research,” he identified Nguyen as the suspect, the report said. The Snapchat account allegedly remained active as the investigation continued.
Detectives began surveilling Nguyen’s residence before Avery Ping died on Dec. 19, 2024.
“Without going into specific details of the case, as of December 19, 2024, I had not yet established probable cause to arrest Nguyen,” Goss told The Olympian in an emailed statement. “... At that time, I believed I was approaching probable cause but had not yet fully met it for a lawful arrest.”
What does it take to arrest a suspected drug dealer?
Drug investigations are typically kept confidential until an arrest is made, Goss said. That means law enforcement cannot rely on traditional investigative methods such as conducting interviews, collecting video evidence or serving search warrants early in a case.
“Any action that alerts a drug dealer to the presence of an investigation significantly increases the likelihood that the case will be compromised and may never result in a successful arrest or prosecution,” Goss said.
Surveillance is a useful tool, but Goss said it’s a time-intensive process that often requires multiple undercover detectives.
To arrest someone suspected of dealing drugs, Goss said detectives must develop “tangible physical evidence of a drug delivery.” Anonymous tips, suspicions and circumstantial evidence are not sufficient, he said.
“Reaching the level of proof required for conviction often involves extensive investigative work, including weeks or even months of surveillance and evidence gathering,” Goss said.
Investigations can get more complicated when minors are involved. Goss said law enforcement cannot use minors as informants due to safety and ethical reasons.
State law also prohibits law enforcement from interviewing minors in suspected criminal cases without legal representation, he added.
Goss said he’s aware of about 20–30 people involved in dealing drugs within the community at any given time. Yet, he’s only able to develop successful cases on a small percentage of them.
“If one detective has visibility on that many individuals, it underscores the broader scope of the problem,” Goss said.
Goss said the Narcotics Task Force is staffed with “highly motivated and hardworking detectives,” but city police departments across the county, including Olympia’s, do not currently participate.
“Additional personnel would not only allow for more cases to be pursued against those distributing drugs in our community, but would also improve surveillance capabilities, ultimately reducing the time required to build and complete investigations,” Goss said.
The Sheriff’s Office; Prosecutor’s Office; state Department of Community Corrections; Homeland Security Investigations; US Marshal’s Service; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are part of the task force.
Olympia police homicide investigation
The Olympia Police Department started their investigation into Nguyen on Dec. 20, 2024, OPD Lt. Paul Lower said.
Olympia detectives asked the TCSO Narcotics Task Force about “travisolympia” and Nguyen, and Goss filled them in from there.
Avery Ping communicated with Nguyen via Snapchat and purchased MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. The teen ingested the drug and later died at an area hospital.
A toxicology report exclusively attributed the overdose to MDMA, Thurston County Coroner Gary Warnock said.
Witnesses told Olympia detectives that Nguyen sold drugs to children in middle and high school across the county, according to police and court records.
One witness said they met Nguyen three years ago in Tumwater. At the time, Nguyen was allegedly selling drugs to children out of his vehicle.
“(The witness) said when Son (Nguyen) would show up places, he would notice an actual line begin to form at his vehicle of students buying from him,” one police report reads. “(The witness) said he had seen small children no older than 6th grade at Son’s vehicle.”
The Olympian asked Nguyen’s attorney, Steven Trinen, to comment on the allegations about Nguyen’s drug dealing. Trinen said police reports often contain speculative information that’s ultimately incorrect or unsupported by the evidence at hand.
“That’s because the job of police is often to cast a wide net and gather as much information as possible, including information that is not always the most reliable,” Trinen said.
On Jan. 6, 2024, detectives served a search warrant at Nguyen’s home, which is less than a mile north of North Thurston High School. There, detectives recovered drugs and firearms and arrested Nguyen at the scene, court records show.
Prosecutors charged Nguyen with the following crimes on Jan. 9, 2025:
- Controlled substance homicide while armed with a firearm.
- Distribution of a controlled substance to a person under age 18 at least three years junior.
- Three counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver while armed with a firearm.
- Six counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
- Possessing a stolen firearm.
Trinen said it makes legal sense for prosecutors to assert all the allegations in a probable cause statement.
“But unfortunately, for people who are unfamiliar with the system, that can create inaccurate understandings about the nature of the case and what is really going on,” Trinen said. “This can lead to frustration and disappointment when outcomes are different from those misunderstood initial expectations.”
Prosecution faces ‘evidentiary concerns’
Nguyen ultimately pleaded guilty to two crimes: second-degree manslaughter and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brendan Rochford addressed the previous charges during the March 11 sentencing hearing. He said there were “evidentiary concerns” that presented “serious barriers to the presentation of the original charges at trial.”
Rochford worked on the case with fellow Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth McMullen.
The Olympian asked to speak with them as well as Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim about the evidentiary issues in the case. Tunheim spoke on his deputies’ behalf.
“The challenge in controlled substance homicide prosecutions, oftentimes, is in that connection of, can we prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the substance that was delivered, assuming we could prove a delivery, was the actual substance used by the person who’s deceased?” Tunheim said. “Those challenges popped up in this case.”
Tunheim said there was no eyewitness to the delivery in this case and that prosecutors could not rely on other witnesses.
“The witnesses weren’t necessarily cooperating with us and we really didn’t know if they would testify, or how they would testify if they were called to testify in the trial,” Tunehim said.
Tunheim also said Trinen planned to contest the legitimacy of the search warrant for Nguyen’s home.
“There are these uncertainties that come up during the litigation, where if we lose a motion like a search warrant, that’s a huge blow to our case, and it really can impact the potential outcome of the case,” Tunheim said.
When reached for comment, Trinen said there must be specific evidence and reason to support a valid search warrant under state and federal law.
“It is not enough to have generalized assertions that suspects typically keep certain types of things in certain locations,” Trinen said.
What happened with the search warrant?
Olympia police detectives wrote a legal affidavit to request the search warrant, and a Thurston County Superior Court Judge found there was probable cause to approve it, Lower said.
Tunheim said every search warrant is subject to review by a judge when a criminal case is filed and charged.
“There’s still always a risk that a new judge looks at it and says, ‘Well, wait a minute. I have a problem with this,’” Tunheim said. “And then, of course, the difference there is, now there’s a defense lawyer who’s arguing about why the search warrant is deficient. Whereas in the probable cause, it’s law enforcement just talking to the judge.”
Trinen said he believed Olympia officers were not at fault for warrant issues in this case.
“The officers were doing the best that they could with the information available to them,” Trinen said. “It is just that their efforts were constrained by the limited information available to them based on how the case developed in the first place.”
Plea deals arise, Tunheim said, as the defense and prosecution evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a case. In this matter, Tunheim said his office did not want to risk losing the case outright.
“We felt like (the plea deal) was a reasonable outcome and it met the priorities for both us and for the victim’s family,” Tunheim said.
Avery Ping’s family at odds with prosecutors
Prism Dawn McCabe said the case outcome did not meet the family’s priorities, and she believes there is a significant amount of corroborating digital evidence that could have convinced a jury.
“The prosecutor’s framing of the facts in this case are misleading at best,” McCabe said.
McCabe said she shared home security camera footage of Nguyen’s vehicle arriving for the delivery, her son’s text communications with Nguyen about the drug transaction and payment receipts.
“The video evidence is time stamped to match the corroborating evidence that identifies Son Nguyen as the person making the transaction in that car at that moment,” McCabe said. “... They named (the drug), they priced it and that’s what was proven to be in his system.”
Tara Tsehlana, spokesperson for the PAO, said the primary legal challenge with a homicide charge is not proving whether a delivery occurred but whether the substance delivered was a controlled substance and whether it was that substance that caused the victim’s death.
“The victim’s surviving brother, who was a possible witness in the case, is a minor and cannot be interviewed by law enforcement without parental consent or access to an attorney,” Tsehlana said. “According to the police reports, law enforcement sought to interview him several times, but was unsuccessful in their efforts.”
McCabe said it's disingenuous to suggest there was no reliable witness. She said detectives approached her about interviewing her son, and they agreed, provided his disability could be accommodated.
“Scheduling wise, we were open to options, McCabe said. “It’s just that the one option did not work ... . We were not followed up with.”
Avery Ping had a knack for cheering people up and was naturally compassionate, his family previously told The Olympian. He attended Olympia High School through the 2023-2024 school year, but he spent his last four months living with his paternal grandparents in rural New York.
He returned to his Olympia family home for the holiday when he overdosed.
Aaron Ping told the Olympian that he believes the justice system failed. He wishes Nguyen and the social media platforms he used would face more legal accountability, he said.
“Without sending a message in these cases, prosecutors are letting it continue,” Aaron Ping said.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional comment from Prism Dawn McCabe.
This story was originally published April 7, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
