SMETHPORT — On the first day of trial for Larry W. Shroyer, the courtroom heard about the months leading up to alleged victim George Duke Jr.’s death, as well as an encounter with police that Shroyer had the day before Duke died.

Shroyer, 48, appeared Monday in McKean County Court before President Judge John Pavlock for a trial that is expected to last three days.

Shroyer is accused of selling to Duke a mixture of butyryl fentanyl and heroin, which caused his death in 2015. Then, Shroyer allegedly failed to show up at the police station after telling an officer that he would turn himself in.

District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg-Shaffer is prosecuting the case, and Ridgway attorney John Thomas is representing Shroyer.

Two codefendants in the case, James A. Luper Jr. and Rachel L. Reid, each pleaded guilty in 2018 and are serving their sentences.

A jury was in place by the time court recessed for lunch, and they reconvened to hear five witnesses before the end of the day.

In her opening statements, Shaffer described how heroin is sold in what are called “stamp bags,” and the drug is frequently cut with other drugs. Buyers “don’t know what they’re getting.”

This happened to Duke, who had heroin mixed with butyryl fentanyl. However, in 2015, butyryl fentanyl was considered a designer drug — “substantially similar to fentanyl” but too new to be considered a Schedule I controlled substance by state law, Shaffer explained.

She noted the state legislature recognized butyryl fentanyl as a Schedule I controlled substance in 2016.

Shaffer talked about the Duke family.

“‘Georgie’ is like any of our sons,” Shaffer said, using the common nickname for the younger Duke. He likes to play video games, order food and do other things a “typical 25-year-old” would do. “This family was very typical, and they tried to keep their son healthy.”

She added, “These people are just like the rest of us, but they lost their son to drugs.”

After showing enough progress, his parents felt comfortable leaving him at the house while they were in Florida. It was in November that Duke “reached out to Larry Shroyer” and started taking odd amounts of money out of his bank account.

Meanwhile, Shaffer indicated that Shroyer felt important by selling drugs to a man whose family owns Zippo Manufacturing Co.

“There was prestige associated with selling him drugs,” she said.

“Everyone knew this mixture was hot” — meaning “potent” — and it was too potent for Duke, who had been in rehab, Shaffer explained.

Thomas told the jury, “Larry Shroyer is not, was not, a drug dealer.” He said Shroyer did not give drugs to Duke. “(Shroyer’s) a drug addict.”

Thomas asked the jury to look at the situation from more than one angle. He said the jury will hear from a couple of witnesses who say that during his final days, Duke was in contact with others from the High Street, Bradford, residence where the drug he took originated.

First on the stand was Duke’s mother, Lisa Duke, followed by his father, George Duke Sr., who both described the last years of their son’s life while he was fighting addiction.

During that struggle, Lisa Duke explained, she and her ex-husband fought alongside their adult son, taking him to rehab centers, seeing counselors, placing curfews and rules on him, discouraging him from hanging out with people who were not good for him.

At one point, the family hired an interventionist to help them confront Duke Jr. Lisa Duke described the experience. Participants each read letters to her son, and they had a bag packed for him already and a rehab center ready to take him to. He agreed to go.

She had even traveled with him to one rehab center, living in a hotel nearby to be near him and going to two Al-Anon meetings a day.

He spent most of the time from December 2013 to June 2015, in rehab facilities, then came home to live in his father’s house on East Main Street, Bradford.

“He seemed like he was doing well,” said Lisa Duke, explaining that he was doing lawn work and landscaping at home and not spending time with the wrong people anymore.

On Nov. 7, 2015, she left for a trip to Florida.

“I felt he was fine or I wouldn’t have left,” she noted.

George Duke Sr. remembers the date Dec. 2, 2013, well: It was the date his son started his last block of time in rehab.

His son was found dead on Nov. 13, 2015 — less than a month before his two-year anniversary of being clean.

It was at the third rehab center, where George Duke Jr. was required to spend time outdoors and do chores, that he felt his son was really improving. One habit he learned there — cooking dinner once a week — he continued when he moved back in with his father.

“I observed my son doing far better than I had at any other facilities,” he said.

Once his son came home, George Duke Sr. watched him “like a hawk,” looking for any behavior or attitude change that would indicate his son starting to use again. He said Lisa Duke and his housekeeper, Marsha Abrams, were watching, too.

He was getting comfortable with his son’s progress and was hopeful that they were reaching the “light at the end of the tunnel.”

George Duke Sr. went to Florida on Nov. 10, 2015, for a trip that he expected to last a week to 10 days. He was nervous leaving his son at home, but he saw no sign that his son was using drugs, and Abrams would be coming in to work and check on him.

Abrams, who worked for the family for roughly 20 years, knew his son’s “moods and behaviors as much as I did,” he explained.

Abrams was the next to come to stand.

She came to work around 8 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2015, and started her cleaning routine like any other day. It was just after 11 a.m. when she went to take laundry upstairs that she saw his bedroom door was ajar — he slept with the door closed — and said something like, “Oh, you are up.”

However, she peeked in to find George Duke Jr. was lying face-down on the bed. She saw a syringe and spoon on the nightstand, “and I knew immediately it was not a good situation.”

Abrams thought about doing CPR but quickly realized it would be “useless” due to his condition. She ran downstairs, paced a couple of times and called 911.

Among the first responders who came to the house that day was Nate Mealy, a firefighter/paramedic with the Bradford City Fire Department. He testified after Abrams.

As part of his testimony, Mealy described Duke’s condition upon arrival at the home. After he talked about what happens to a body during the first couple of days after death, he “agreed reasonably” with Shaffer’s suggestion that Duke was likely dead for a period of between six and 24 hours when Mealy saw him.

McKean County Detective Linda Close, who was an officer with the Bradford City Police Department at the time of the death investigation, was the final person to testify on Monday.

Close also described for the jury the scene she saw in Duke’s bedroom, which was similar to those by Abrams and Mealy.

When she was back in the station later, she heard officers talking about how Duke had been exchanging text messages with Shroyer.

This prompted Close to relate an exchange between her and Shroyer that happened on Nov. 12, 2015 — the day before Duke was found dead.

Nov. 12, 2015, was a Thursday, and parking is restricted on High Street, Bradford, on Thursdays. Close said she was getting ready to write a ticket for a vehicle that was parked across from 87 High St., when she saw Shroyer come from a residence there to the vehicle. That residence was known to law enforcement for its ongoing drug activity.

It was, in fact, the home where codefendants Luper and Reid were living, along with other people.

At the end of Close’s testimony, the court recessed for the day.

The trial will continue at 8:30 a.m. today.