BUTLER TWP — A man will face charges that he provided morphine to a friend who later fatally overdosed.

But Joel E. Cumberland, 54, of West Sunbury, will not be charged in Kem Ziegler’s death.

Ziegler, 55, of Butler Township died Feb. 16 at her home. An autopsy ruled her death the result of combined “drug toxicity” of six substances, including morphine, authorities said.

A forensic pathologist, however, later determined he could not make a direct connection between the morphine pills that Cumberland gave Ziegler and her death.

The defendant admitted that he provided Ziegler with the painkillers but only because he wanted to help ease her pain from a lengthy illness.

Butler Township police on Monday charged Cumberland with delivery of a controlled substance, a felony, and misdemeanor drug possession.

The case was filed after prosecutors decided against charging Cumberland with drug delivery resulting in death, the equivalent of third-degree murder.

“To make that charge stick we have to prove that the victim received the fatal dose from the defendant,” Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger said Tuesday.

“We can’t prove that the drugs (Cumberland) delivered to (Ziegler) was the cause of her death.”

Butler Township detectives began investigating the case Feb. 16 when police learned Ziegler had died at her apartment at Whitestown Village.

Investigators found several prescriptions in her bedroom. The medication was for a medical condition that was not specified in court documents.

Ziegler’s obituary noted that she died after a lingering battle with Crohn’s disease, an incurable inflammatory disorder that can weaken the function of the stomach, intestines, colon and other organs.

The disease can cause severe abdominal pain, according to WebMD.

In Zeigler’s purse, officers also found a plastic sandwich baggie with four morphine pills in it.

The woman’s live-in fiancé told investigators that Cumberland on Feb. 14 was at the apartment to visit Ziegler. The defendant also brought her morphine pills that were in the baggie.

Detective James Sasse on April 20 interviewed Cumberland at the station. He acknowledged having a Facebook conversation with Ziegler on Feb. 14.

During the online chat, she told him that she was “in a lot of pain and didn’t have any pain medication,” documents said.

Cumberland said he offered his friend six morphine pills that he had “left over” from recent kidney stone treatment.

He recounted that she asked him to bring the pills, police said. She also assured her friend that she had previously taken morphine pills.

The defendant provided investigators screenshots of the conversation, police said, which corroborated his account.

Based on what he knew about the investigation, Goldinger said it appeared that Cumberland’s motive was only to relieve a friend’s pain.

“But that doesn’t make what he did right,” Goldinger said. “What he did was illegal.”

Cumberland, too, admitted wrongdoing, investigators said, when he stopped by Ziegler’s apartment Feb. 14 and gave her the pills.

“(He said) he knew what he was doing was illegal,” according to a police affidavit, “but she was in a lot a pain, and he was just trying to help out a friend.”

The defendant told Sasse that he spoke with the woman for several hours that night before leaving about 4 a.m. Feb. 15. He recalled that she took one of the morphine pills while he was there.

At some point later she apparently took another pill since police only found four in the baggie that was in her purse.

The toxicology screening from Ziegler’s autopsy showed the presence of morphine and five other drugs, all apparently prescription medication.

The pathologist’s subsequent review of the case, which included autopsy and toxicology reports, documents said, concluded “the two morphine pills that were unaccounted for could not be solely responsible for (her) death.”

That finding, Goldinger said, ruled out charging Cumberland with overdose-related homicide.

Under state law, the prosecution has to prove that the defendant acted recklessly — not that he intended to cause death — to secure a conviction of drug delivery resulting in death.

Prosecutors, Goldinger said, must be able to connect a suspect to the specific deadly drug dose.

“It’s not always the easiest connection to make,” he acknowledged, particularly if the victim had more than one drug in his or her system.

Cumberland could have faced a maximum of 40 years in prison for the drug delivery resulting in death charge, alone, if convicted.

Instead, he faces a top count of delivery of a controlled substance, an ungraded felony.

Although the penalties can vary for that charge, depending on the type of controlled substance, delivery of morphine can carry up to 15 years in prison.

Cumberland, who remains free on his own recognizance, faces a preliminary hearing in the case Sept. 15 before District Judge Kevin O’Donnell.

His attorney, Michael Jewart, declined to comment Tuesday.