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# Major Drug Bust in the Town of Mendocino Follows Apparent Deadly Overdose
- URL: https://www.mendolocal.news/major-drug-bust-in-the-town-of-mendocino-follows-apparent-deadly-overdose/
- Published: 2026-09-23T21:15:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-23T21:17:14.000Z
- Description: Clayton Lowell, 39, is being held on felony drug charges after investigators seized counterfeit fentanyl pills, xylazine, and other drugs — an arrest that came five days after his wife died of an apparent overdose.
- Author: Elise Cox
- Tags: Town of Mendocino, News

MENDOCINO, Calif. — A Mendocino man is being held on $50,000 bond after his arrest last week on felony drug-manufacturing and possession-for-sale charges, jail and court records show — an arrest that came five days after his wife apparently fatally overdosed.

Clayton Lowell, 39, was booked into the Mendocino County Jail on Sept. 19 at 3:31 p.m. by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, according to jail records. He faces felony charges including manufacturing a controlled substance by chemical extraction, possession or purchase of a controlled substance for sale, and possession. Bond has been set at $50,000, according to jail documents. Lowell's arraignment, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 23, was reset, according to court records.

Investigators seized M30 fentanyl pills, along with DMT, mescaline, ketamine, cocaine, LSD, xylazine (tranq), psilocybin, MDMA, and Xanax — leading to 10 felony charges, according to court documents.

The M30 pills are counterfeit tablets stamped to resemble 30-milligram oxycodone. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that 6 in 10 of the fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills its lab analyzed in 2022 contained a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl, up from 4 in 10 the year before.

Xylazine, a nonopioid veterinary tranquilizer often called "tranq," has moved rapidly into the illicit fentanyl supply. In a 2023 alert, the DEA reported that in 2022 about 23% of the fentanyl powder and 7% of the fentanyl pills it seized contained xylazine, and that it had detected the mixture in 48 of 50 states. Because xylazine is not an opioid, the overdose-reversal drug naloxone does not reverse its effects, and it can cause severe skin wounds that may lead to amputation, the agency said.

In a public safety advisory issued May 12, 2026, the DEA warned that fentanyl is increasingly being cut with a widening array of emerging substances — including medetomidine, another animal sedative, and nitazenes and cychlorphine, synthetic opioids that can be significantly more potent than fentanyl. Naloxone may not fully reverse the sedatives, and the opioids can require several doses, the agency said. "These combinations are making an already deadly drug supply even more unpredictable and lethal," the advisory said.

The complaint, filed Sept. 22, cites "Lowell's potential liability for murder" and includes a warning: "All drugs and counterfeit pills are themselves deadly, but they become even deadlier because they are often mixed with deadly substances such as fentanyl and analogs of fentanyl. These substances alone or mixed together, kill human beings in very small doses. If you continue to engage in such drug-related conduct, and as a result someone dies, you can be charged with murder."

Lowell has been arrested but not convicted, and is presumed innocent.

His wife, Sheana Rose Voltz, 40, died Sept. 14\. The sheriff's office identified her and said it opened a coroner's investigation into an apparent overdose at 9:10 a.m. that day, according to Capt. Quincy Cromer, a sheriff's office spokesperson. The office has not released a cause of death.