- Witnesses testified about Bella Bates' overdose death in a hearing for Darik Ottens on Friday.
- Ottens is charged with murder and accused of providing Bates with fentanyl.
- Prosecutors presented location and messaging evidence showing Ottens and Bates arranged for her to get drugs from him.
PROVO — Traci Bates tearfully testified Friday about her daughter, Bella Bates, a woman who died from a drug overdose in the Orem Sprouts grocery store.
She said she tried everything to convince Darik Ottens to stop contacting her daughter, calling him on the phone and sending text messages, but it seemed her efforts had no effect. He told the woman it was her daughter who was initiating the contact.
Ottens is charged with murder, a first-degree felony, and is accused of providing fentanyl to the Midvale woman.
Multiple witnesses during Ottens' preliminary hearing testified that Bella Bates had told them things like, "I know Darik not being an option will save my life."
Ottens, 42, of Eagle Mountain, was originally charged with manslaughter after an investigation into Bates' death, but the charge was upgraded to murder in December, with prosecutors alleging that he acted with "depraved indifference to human life." In Friday's preliminary hearing, prosecutors called witnesses to support that change as they ask a judge to order him to stand trial for murder.
Defense attorney Rudy Bautista asked to submit written briefs to 4th District Judge Christine Johnson for her to consider before deciding whether there is enough evidence to bind Ottens over for trial.
In a jail call to his family played in court Friday, Ottens said he was not a drug dealer and would just help Bates get drugs, just like he got them for himself. But he said he had not seen anyone as fixated on drugs as she was.
"I don't deserve to go down for anyone's death, not by any means," he said in the call.
Orem police officer Dallin Largin said he responded to the Sprouts after hearing about an overdose because he knew an informant worked there, and he learned that it was the informant who had died.
Police went to Ottens' home that evening and found drugs and related paraphernalia, Largin testified. He said texts combined with store footage and location data showed just a few days before Ottens had dropped off drugs for Bates in the store's bathroom, and that he had brought some to her home in the morning of the day she overdosed.
A toxicology report showed Bates died from an "acute fentanyl toxicity overdose."
Largin said just before she was declared dead, Ottens texted her, "This stuff is better than the other."
Orem police officer Gavin Johnson said Bates had agreed to make controlled drug purchases from Ottens, which happened about a week before her death.
Brooke Hildreth, who identified herself as Bates' "sober companion," talked about finding her in the bathroom stall when Bates didn't answer her text saying she was there to pick her up on Oct. 13, 2025.
"She wasn't waking up, her face was like veiny, she wasn't breathing," Hildreth testified.
She called 911, gave Bates' naloxone and did CPR until paramedics arrived.
Hildreth said she had known Bates for about six months through working at Pinnacle Recovery Treatment Center. They had talked about how deadly a relapse might be for Bates.
"She was afraid, I think everybody was afraid that if she kept using (fentanyl) she was going to die eventually," Hildreth said.
In addition to murder, Ottens is charged with four counts of distributing a controlled substance and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, a second-degree felony; obstruction of justice, a third-degree felony; and use or possession of drug paraphernalia.
