Sarah Errickson, left, is charged with murder in the overdose death of her sister, Emily Cruddas.
A woman is accused of killing her sister in their Upper Township home and making it look like a drug overdose.
Emily Cruddas, 21, was found dead Feb. 17, 2023, by state troopers who responded to her Upper Township home for the report of a drug overdose.
Three wax folds were found on the nightstand next to her stamped with “White House,” according to the affidavit of probable cause obtained by BreakingAC.
But charges now claim that Cruddas did not take the drugs herself. Instead, it was a plan sparked by her sister that included the help of at least one man who is now wanted, court records show.
Sarah Errickson, 36, first incapacitated her younger sister by giving her Xanax, Joseph Ragan told investigators less than a month after the detah.
Ragan, now 22, told investigators he covered Cruddas’ mouth as Errickson injected a hypodermic needle filled with drugs between her sister’s thumb and index finger.
“Take your medicine,” Ragan said he told Cruddas, who he said was not moving but had her eyes open and was looking at him.
Ragan stayed with the victim for about seven hours “while she gargled and had labored breathing,” the affidavit states. Cruddas stopped breathing at about 6 a.m. Feb. 17, 2023.
She would not be pronounced dead until nearly 11 hours later, after police were called to the home.
Cruddas' last TikTok posted Jan. 25 said she was getting married in less than a month and that the couple was expecting a baby. It was not clear if she was pregnant at the time of her death.
Errickson allegedly blamed her sister for causing her to lose her children and trying to take the Upper Township home the two inherited from their mother, who died in 2020, according to court papers obtained by BreakingAC.
“Sarah previously mentioned multiple times about killing her sister as well as other people by injecting them with a legal does of CDS (controlled dangerous substances),” a witness told investigators, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
Cruddas was being released from the hospital Feb. 16, 2023, after an apparent suicide attempt, which Errickson planned to use as the cause of her sister’s death, Ragan said.
Both Errickson and Ragan are charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Ragan, who lives in Philadelphia, has an active warrant for his arrest, court records show.
Ragan told investigators of the plan March 6, 2023, according to the affidavit, which says he waived his rights and spoke without an attorney. ‘
But it seems more evidence needed to be gathered before charges could be filed.
On April 19 of last year, an unnamed man who is not charged at this time, turned over a backpack he was given by another man, who also has not been charged.
It contained an orange toolbox that had 18 cell phones, 15 wax folds containing suspected heroin stamped with the same “White House” that was found at the scene of Cruddas’ death, several pairs of latex gloves and a notebook piece of paper with a handwritten note including “a ‘schedule or plan’ to the events that surrounded the suspicious death of Cruddas,” the affidavit states.
Detectives met with the man who originally had the backpack on Jan. 23. His attorney accompanied him in the interview at the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office.
The information he gave investigators corroborated the statements Ragan previously gave that were known only to law enforcement, the affidavit states.
Errickson, who now lives in Millville, was arrested a short time later, and is in the Cape May County jail. She appeared before a judge via video from a room in the facility briefly Wednesday, when she was told her detention hearing was postponed to Monday due to a request from the state.
The home where the death happened has since been sold, according to a lawsuit Errickson filed against her sister's father.
The house was supposed to be split between the two sisters, per their mother's will, the lawsuit states. But when Cruddas died, her half was to revert to her sister.
However, James Cruddas “made false, unsupported and unfounded allegations concerning (Errickson) in regard to the death of her sister,” the lawsuit read.
It does not detail the man's claims or say if they had to do with his daughter's death.
Half of the home's sale — $135,554.90 — was put into escrow as a result.
But it appears James Cruddas did not file a response to the suit, and a ruling in April gave Errickson sole rights to the proceeds from the sale.
