A Minneapolis man is accused of giving a woman a controlled substance that caused her death at a Bloomington hotel in July 2025, according to the complaint.

The offense is alleged to have occurred on or about July 26, 2025, according to the complaint. The complaint lists one count: third-degree murder for selling, giving or distributing a controlled substance in Schedule I or II. The maximum sentence is 25 years and/or $40,000.

Fernando Estevan Hi, who was 31 at the time of the alleged offense, of Minneapolis, is charged in a complaint filed Nov. 5 in Hennepin County District Court. The complaint says he gave the woman a controlled substance and, without intent to cause death, proximately caused her death.

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According to the complaint, officers were dispatched to the Doubletree Hotel in Bloomington at about 5:14 p.m. on July 26, 2025, on a report of a suspected overdose. Dispatch said an unresponsive woman who was not breathing was in the parking lot. Emergency medical responders provided lifesaving measures. The woman was taken to Fairview Southdale Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

The medical examiner determined the immediate cause of death was combined fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity. The manner of death was listed as accidental. The complaint says methamphetamine and fentanyl are both Schedule II controlled substances.

Hotel witnesses told officers they saw a man and a woman wheeling the woman through the lobby on a chair. One witness saw that the woman’s lips were blue and asked whether she was breathing. The pair said yes and that her mother was outside. The witness followed them and saw them try to put the woman into a white SUV.

The driver of the SUV told police she saw the pair pushing the chair and checked the woman for a pulse but found none. She alerted hotel staff to call 911 and asked the pair whether they would start chest compressions or help in any way, but neither responded. She said the pair tried to push the woman into the SUV, but she stopped them. The pair then left the woman seated in the chair in the parking lot and walked away.

Officers reviewed lobby video and obtained descriptions of the pair. Police later learned a phone number that called the hospital about the woman’s status belonged to a second woman, who was with her at the hotel.

The complaint says investigators obtained records for that phone showing text messages on the day of the incident with a number that was traced through subscriber and billing records to Hi. Lyft records listed Hi as the account holder for a ride ordered that day to the hotel.

In an interview in June 2026, the second woman told police she contacted Hi to arrange a ride to the hotel and that he met them in the lobby. She told police Hi had a bag of methamphetamine in his pocket, put it in a pipe, took a hit and passed the pipe to the woman, who took a hit. She said the woman later closed her eyes and looked impaired. She said one of the men in the room used Narcan on her. The woman briefly woke and then nodded off again, according to the complaint.

The second woman told police Hi told everyone in the room to turn their phones off and that he left to get a car to take the woman to the hospital but never returned. She said Hi was the only person who gave the woman drugs while she was with her at the hotel.

The complaint says that when it was filed, Hi was in federal custody in North Dakota on a pending federal controlled substance charge. A judge ordered bail of $500,000 in the Hennepin County case.

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Jurisdictional Context

Hennepin County is Minnesota’s most populous jurisdiction. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office handles felony prosecutions across Minneapolis and 44 other cities; the Fourth Judicial District presides over felony arraignments and trials at the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis.