Man involved in deaths of 13-year-olds in Park City sentenced to prison 8 years later

Photo: Colin Andrew Shapard is seen in surveillance footage mailing a package federal authorities said contained fentanyl. (Photo provided by U.S. Attorney’s Office, Utah District)

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Colin Shapard, a Park City teen who supplied drugs that killed two 13-year-olds in 2016, was sentenced to prison Thursday in connection with an 18-year-old’s 2022 overdose.

Shapard, now 23 and most recently a resident of Nevada, was 15 years old when he bought drugs online that killed two Park City boys and left the town shocked. At the time, the synthetic opioids he purchased weren’t illegal, and Shapard did not go to jail. Instead, he was ordered to complete a drug treatment program as part of his juvenile probation.

Court filings outline the struggles Shapard developed, including post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety that caused him to have seizures. He was prescribed opioids for a surgery needed as a result of injuries related to his seizures, which led to him seeking drugs online when his prescription ran out, prosecutors said.

In 2022, Shapard sold the fentanyl-laced drugs he bought to an 18-year-old Park City resident who overdosed. Thursday, a federal judge ruled Shapard would spend at least 20 years – the mandatory minimum – in prison.  

The 18-year-old who overdosed in 2022 did not die after ingesting the drugs Shapard mailed him. He was found unconscious by his father, who called 911. Paramedics reached the teen in time to administer Narcan and save his life, a court filing stated.

Grant Seaver and Ryan Ainsworth, both 13, were the victims of Shapard’s 2016 incident. They died due to acute drug intoxication of U-47700, the synthetic opioid known as “pink.”

Seaver died on Sept. 11 and Ainsworth died two days later. Both boys lived in Park City, attended Treasure Mountain Junior High School, and were found dead at their family homes.

Recently, Robert Ainsworth, the father of Ryan Ainsworth, who no longer lives in Park City, told Fox 13 Now the drug dealing was the worst kept secret in Summit County. He now hopes Shapard’s arrest will bring the issue more out into the open.

“My message is that this needs to be talked about to prevent it from happening in the future,” Ainsworth said. “Being a former aircraft designer and flight tester and now working for a major airline, it’s our duty, if there is something wrong, to report this information so that it doesn’t happen again.”

Ainsworth said the pain of losing his son will never go away and he just hopes it won’t happen to anyone else.