According to the Sanford Herald (subscription required), Christina Rivera, 40, was arrested Thursday after admitting to detectives that she gave her boyfriend, 32-year-old Robert Wayne Matthews, a lethal dose of heroin following a fight the two had had over drugs on June 5.
She has been placed in the Lee County Jail without bail.
Rivera’s mugshot should look familiar to followers of Carter’s Facebook page, where he regularly posts blog updates about recent arrests.
On June 8, Carter posted a status update with Rivera’s mugshot and the headline “Agents Arrested Sanford Woman for Heroin.” The brief blog linked to the update offers only the various charges against Rivera, filed on June 6, and that she’d been placed in the Lee County Jail under a $20,000 secured bond. There is no mention of finding her boyfriend dead in the same home a day earlier.
Rivera’s personal Facebook page doesn’t show much activity outside of various birthday wishes over the years. However, the profile photo appears to show her and (possibly) Matthews with their child in happier times – a heartbreaking photo when considering the sheriff’s department news release the Sanford Herald quoted (subscription required) Friday:
“Christina Rivera (girlfriend) reported to officers on scene she had returned from the grocery store around 3 p.m. and found Mathews on the floor and believed he was asleep,” according to the news release. “After retrieving her daughter from the bus stop, their daughter in common attempted to wake Mathews and realized he was not breathing.”