Susan Fox holds her two cats Shugo and Alex, both named after her son in her home in Indianapolis. Alex was her son’s middle name and Shugo was his video game username.

On July 26, 2020 after not being able to contact her son, Fox received a phone call that is every parent’s worst nightmare. The Marion County coroner’s office was on the other end of the line. They told her that her 28-year-old son Nathan May had been found dead in his vehicle in a hotel parking lot in the 4100 block of Kildeer Drive. It was later revealed that May died from acute fentanyl intoxication.

32-year-old Marion County Man Hunter McSwain has been charged with 12 years in jail for reckless homicide and dealing in a narcotic drug, both level 5 felonies in relation to May’s death.

Fox is set on clearing her son’s name and encouraging parents to communicate with their children.

She normally didn’t call her son at work. But on that day she did, but never connected. About the time he was supposed to get home, she received the phone call from the coroner.

“I had seen him the day before, he was home, he went to work and we crossed a lot because of his work hours, so I didn’t realize he didn’t come home the night before,” said Fox. “If he wasn’t at his two jobs, he was helping his ex-girlfriend with the dogs or at the gym, he had a very structured routine. I got on our phone account and he had tried to call five people that day and he made those calls when he was home, he was getting ready to meet up with a friend. The first four people I knew, none of those calls went through. The fifth number, I didn’t recognize.”

Fox said that her nephew called the unknown number and Hunter McSwain answered the phone.

“As soon as Savannah (Smith), Nathan’s ex-girlfriend heard that name she said ‘Susie, Hunter gave him fentanyl. That’s what he does, that’s why all of us stopped talking to him,’” said Fox.

McSwain and May went to high school together and were friends in school, but lost contact afterward. The last phone activity on May’s cell phone was a call between him and McSwain around the time that May was suspected to have died.

Fox invited McSwain to her house to discuss May’s cause of death. She said she was willing to do anything to get to the bottom of what happened with her son and prayed about their interaction. She even asked McSwain to pray with her upon arrival.

“We talked for two and a half hours, he admitted that he gave Nathan fentanyl,” said Fox. “He said he told Nathan it was fentanyl, which I don’t believe. He said he warned Nathan that it was really strong. He admitted he left Nathan at 3 p.m. and Nathan was fine. After about three or four days from that conversation, I’m in recovery, so I invited Hunter to go to a meeting with me. That’s where I struggle because he’s responsible for my son’s death, but he’s also struggling with addiction. I’ve been sober for 27-years so I know a lot of people and I really wanted to help him.”

McSwain did not show up for the meeting.

In disturbing texts later found on McSwain’s phone, he called May gullible in reference to the incident.

Fox said that she knew May smoked marijuana occasionally and had experimented with other drugs in his early twenties, but did not actively partake in anything other than marijuana.

She later found out from his friends that May would occasionally take Xanax as well.

“In Hunter’s texts when he said that Nathan traded Xanax for fentanyl, I knew that was a lie. If Nathan had Xanax, he would not be giving it to you. There was a guy in their circle of friends that had overdosed— I don’t use that term anymore, he was poisoned by fentanyl a couple months before Nathan died.”

She said that May was at the best time of his life before his death.

Fox later decided to contact the Marion County Police and a detective came to her house to listen to the story, but Fox claims he left the house without retrieving her son’s phone. She said she also asked the police to get video footage from a business across the street, but they never retrieved the footage.

“I had numerous conversations with the (Marion County) prosecutor’s office and they shut me down,” said Fox. “Ross Anderson, the detective I originally spoke with, gave me a lot of time and I believe that he believed what I was saying, but that wasn’t enough for me. He said they’re hard to prove, I said I have a recording, I have a confession, I have his phone records, Nathan’s friends and I put together a binder, we had timelines, we did all the work that they should have done. After they shut me down in October (2020), my parents were getting sick and I had to take care of them. I was trying to get back into work at the time.”

Fox said she feels that the stigma surrounding substance abuse was the wrench in her son’s investigation.

“I told the detective, ‘I’m going to rest for a while, but I’m not going away,’” said Fox. “‘Something is wrong and I can’t live the rest of my life not knowing what happened.’ Obviously my son took fentanyl, you can’t dispute that.”

The few years after May’s death were very dark for Fox, she said that she felt like God went away. Fox attributes her strength through this journey to her faith.

May’s ex-girlfriend Savannah Smith was an active part in gathering evidence surrounding his death and encouraged Fox to continue searching for answers.

On Nov. 25, 2020 McSwain was arrested in Brown County for possession of a narcotic drug, a controlled substance and paraphernalia. Brown County Sheriff’s Department Det. Joshua Stargell seized his cell phone and a search warrant for drug intelligence. According to the report, McSwain refused to give up his passcode on his phone.

“Without that phone, we might not even be here right now,” said Fox.

Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams told the Democrat that luck played a large role in the arrest of McSwain. When Stargell pulled him over for reckless driving, he learned that McSwain had been pulled over in Bartholomew County and had passed a field sobriety test so they let him go.

“There’s a lot of strokes of luck and Josh Stargell was on it that day,” Adams explained. “(Bartholomew County) did inform Josh that they did not perform a search on the truck and so they used that information.”

When officers searched the truck, they found a powdery substance suspected to be fentanyl and controlled substances that McSwain did not have a prescription for, Adams said.

“Here’s stroke of luck number one,” said Adams. “At the time, in September 2021, we had a policy I had encouraged police officers as a normal procedure on a felony possession case to seize digital devices and we would seek search warrants for them later … and the whole goal of that was to obtain intelligence of where the drugs were coming from.”

Adams said that McSwain refused to give officers his passcode and told them to destroy the phone, the software they use to break into a phone can potentially destroy the device. They were able to hook the phone up to a software that tests passcodes to eventually open it.

Brown County has since abandoned the unwritten policy of seizing devices when they began overloading the Indiana State Police with the amount of phones they were sending.

“Siezing that phone was really the first domino that allowed Susan Fox to seek justice for Nathan,” said Adams. “That’s where it came from, that seizure of the phone.”

Fox reached out to Adams when McSwain was arrested to notify him about May’s case. Adams said they received a phone call by a Marion County detective that McSwain was being investigated for dealing resulting in death.

“She’s been a tireless advocate for Nathan, I tip my hat to her,” said Adams. “She and I had a penpal relationship, she would give me updates on what is going on in Marion County and I would give her updates about what’s going on in Brown County. I remember I found the email I sent to Susan, I said you are not going to believe this. Not an hour before court I got a phone call from Sgt. Decker that he cracked the code. I was excited about that. I don’t know how Marion County got hold of that stuff, but it brought me joy reading those emails between Susan and I. Things started happening on her end for her in Marion County. We ended up sentencing Mr. McSwain down here, he had an offer of a cap of two years. He did not go to prison or jail, he got some home detention and treatment. All of that is very normal for that level of offense. Susan told me they found valuable information on that phone. It led to the conviction of Mr. McSwain. There is a lot of good fortune with how that case came about and ended up getting justice for Nathan in Marion County, the good Lord was smiling on all those involved. None of that would have happened if she wasn’t a tireless advocate for Nathan and reached out to me via email.”

After this arrest she emailed FOX59 reporter Angela Ganote with information about the case. A week after their story aired in February of 2022, DEA Agent Mike Gannon contacted Susan.

They brought out five agents to inspect May’s phone and investigate the case. Four months later, they made an arrest. McSwain accepted a plea deal and in exchange for pleading guilty to reckless homicide and dealing in a narcotic drug, the state will dismiss the other pending charge of dealing in a controlled substance resulting in death, a level 1 felony.

“I was not on board with the plea deal,” said Fox. “I wanted dealing causing death because that’s what he was arrested for and because the DEA put all the work in it that Marion County would not, so that’s what the charge would be.”

Charges for dealing a controlled substance resulting in death would have resulted in McSwain spending 20 years in prison. Fox was willing to drop the other two charges if he served for that one.

“I told them, he doesn’t have to go for 20 years,” said Fox. “If you can modify it for 15 years and 5 on house arrest, but it was a set plea. I said that’s what felt right for me. The other plea just didn’t feel right for me, I even prayed about it.”

She said she did not know the plea bargain was officially on the table until he accepted it during a pre-trial conference.

“It’s not the plea, that’s not why I was upset,” said Fox. “I was upset because I’m all for the DEA, that’s what they worked for and that’s what it should have been. In the end, I’m glad it’s over. If Hunter gets 10, 20, 50 years, none of it is going to bring Nathan back. The important thing to me is that he is being held accountable, maybe some lives are being saved. With everything I’ve been through with the system, I understand there’s so many parents who lose their kids out there. I hear two things, they either think their kids made a choice or knew the risk. I’m not on board with that when it’s fentanyl.”

“I’m doing this to clear my son’s name, he wasn’t a junkie,” said Fox. “Yeah he did drugs, he probably did drugs like you have a social drink, it was occasional. It doesn’t make it OK and I didn’t like it, but it was occasional. He really wasn’t a junkie, but even if he were I would still be fighting for him. It’s not always a reflection of someone who’s making a poor choice, it can happen to anyone.

“I tell people whenever I get the opportunity, talk to your kids,” said Fox. “Talk to them over and over and over. You know you’re getting through to them when they get annoyed.”

Fox wrote three children’s books for Nathan when he was younger, she is currently working on getting those illustrated and published. She also hopes to publish a book about his story, as well as the letters she wrote to May from before he was born, through his life and even after his death.

“We can take a tip from Susan and be a tireless advocate for your child,” said Adams. “Even if they are struggling with addiction, you’ve got to be an advocate in treatment, don’t give up on them and if they meet an unfortunate end, talk to your elected officials, law enforcement, we want to hold those responsible for those acts and have accountability. Also remain engaged with your kids, if you see something say something, I say that a lot to members of our community. It does take a community to keep our streets clean.”