WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) — A Johnson City man convicted in the second-degree overdose murder of a U.S. Marine has been sentenced to more than 30 years.

According to a news release from the First Judicial District Attorney General’s Office, Austin Forkpa was sentenced on Tuesday to serve a combined term of 32 years in prison.

Forkpa must serve 24 years at 100% and another consecutive eight years at 30%, the release states.

Forkpa was found guilty of second-degree murder, sale of fentanyl and sale of methamphetamine by a jury verdict in June 2025.

Forkpa’s charges stemmed from the 2021 overdose death of 20-year-old U.S. Marine Bueford Patton III.

According to the district attorney’s office, Patton and his friends were at a bachelor party on Sept. 17, 2021, and planned to attend a wedding as groomsmen the next day.

“During the early morning hours of September 18, they obtained narcotics from Austin Forkpa, AKA ‘Louie5Bandz,'” the release states.

Forkpa reportedly told Patton and his friends that the drugs were Percocet and ecstasy. In actuality, Forkpa had sold them fentanyl and meth, prosecutors said.

Patton was found unresponsive on the morning of Sept. 18, 2021. His cause of death was later determined to be consuming a lethal dose of fentanyl.