THORNTON, COLO. — Kimberly Osterman filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in Thornton, Colorado, after her son Max died from a fentanyl-laced pill he purchased through Snapchat in early 2026.

Max arranged to meet a drug dealer he connected with on Snapchat and purchased what he thought was Percocet from the dealer. The pill contained a deadly dose of fentanyl, and Max died the next morning after taking the pill.

The dealer who sold the pill to Max, Sergio Guerra-Carrillo, was sentenced to six years in prison on two distribution charges in 2023. Osterman is pursuing a separate wrongful death lawsuit related to her son's death.

"The truth is out, and it's time that they are held accountable for the design of the platforms," Osterman said. "They put profits over safety."

"The days before social media. The days before the infinite scrolling lured him in," she said.

Osterman is a member of Parents for Safe Online Spaces (ParentsSOS), a group of parents who advocate for more regulation after losing children to online harm. ParentsSOS has campaigned for the Kids Online Safety Act, federal legislation that would require social media platforms to take steps to prevent harm to minors on their services.

She said her son loved lacrosse and wrestling and performed well academically. She hopes social media companies will enact strict guardrails such as age verification technology to prevent anyone under 18 from accessing their platforms.

Snapchat has said it uses technology to proactively identify and shut down drug dealers' accounts and blocks search results for drug-related terms, according to a company statement.