Olympia man pleads guilty in connection to 16-year-old’s fatal overdose
An Olympia man pleaded guilty to two crimes Tuesday in connection to the 2024 overdose death of a local teen.
Son Thien Nguyen, 34, entered guilty pleas for second-degree manslaughter and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance, ecstasy, in Thurston County Superior Court.
Law enforcement accused him of selling Avery Ping, 16, a mixture of fentanyl, amphetamine and methamphetamine outside his family home on Dec. 19, 2024, The Olympian previously reported. The teen ingested the mixture, believing it was ecstasy, and later died at an area hospital. Witnesses told detectives Nguyen sold drugs to Olympia High School students under the pseudonym “Travis,” and communicated with them over social media, typically Snapchat, according to court records.
On Jan. 6, 2024, detectives searched Nguyen’s home, which is less than a mile north of North Thurston High School, and recovered a large trove of drugs and firearms, according to court records.
Judge Mary Sue Wilson accepted Nguyen’s plea after reading aloud a statement Nguyen provided to the court.
“On or about Dec. 19, 2024, I knowingly delivered a controlled substance, MDNA, A.K.A. ecstasy,” Nguyen said in the statement. “I knew that that substance was a controlled substance and I delivered it in Thurston County, Washington.”
I delivered some of the substance with criminal negligence to a minor, (Ping). (Ping), subsequently on Dec. 19, 2024, ingested that substance and died with an overdose.”
The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office previously charged Nguyen with controlled substance homicide while armed with a firearm and many other related drug and firearm charges.
By accepting the plea deal, Nguyen avoids facing those charges at a jury trial. Wilson set Nguyen’s sentencing hearing for March 11.
Wilson said prosecutors intend to recommend three years in prison and one year and six months of community custody for the second-degree manslaughter conviction.
For the unlawful delivery of a controlled substance conviction, she said prosecutors will recommend he concurrently serve one year and eight months in prison and one year of community custody. Both are on the higher end of his standard range, she said.
Though she acknowledged the recommendations, Wilson reminded Nguyen that judges are not bound by them.
Ping attended Olympia High School during the 2023-2024 school year but he was not a current student at the time of his death.
Ping spent his last four months living with his paternal grandparents in rural New York where he attended Hawthorn Valley Waldorf School.
His mother, Prism Dawn McCabe, and step-father, Devon McCabe, both own Soul Café, a downtown Olympia eatery next to Heritage Park.
Both of them, along with his father Aaron Ping, described Avery Ping as a kind person with an entrepreneurial spirit in interviews with The Olympian.
