AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.<\/p>\n
Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n Winter brought Nicole Holliday\u2019s mother back into her life, but spring took her just as quickly.<\/p>\n Read more Raleigh cop accused of excessive use of force. Why the case will continue.<\/a><\/p>\n A little over a year ago, Holliday was working from her Wake Forest home when her grandmother called with the news.<\/p>\n \u201cNicole, they found your mom dead,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember hanging up the phone and just screaming,\u201d Holliday, 31, told The News & Observer. \u201cI was just screaming, like, \u2018God, why? Why now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Victoria Benhoff, 52, wouldn\u2019t get the Easter visit from Holliday and her grandchildren she\u2019d been looking forward to. The animal lover whose smile brought warmth to any room, even as she battled an addiction that began as a teenager, was gone. Her sister discovered her dead from a fentanyl overdose in their Wilmington-area home March 27, 2025.<\/p>\n The substance use that marred Benhoff\u2019s life for decades had taken it, just when Holliday believed her mother was finally sober. The grief was staggering, but Holliday\u2019s pain only compounded as the financial realities of her mother\u2019s unexpected death became clear.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom\u2019s funeral, with cremation and everything, was right at $7,000,\u201d Holliday said.<\/p>\n In a typical homicide case in North Carolina, the victim\u2019s loved ones would be eligible for up to $10,000 in funerary and burial reimbursement through the state\u2019s victims compensation fund. But even though someone had been criminally charged with death by distribution in Benhoff\u2019s death, Benhoff wasn\u2019t considered a victim because she\u2019d chosen to take fentanyl the night she died.<\/p>\n Holliday learned of this rule from the New Hanover County District Attorney\u2019s Office, which was prosecuting Benhoff\u2019s alleged dealer, in the months after her mother\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \u201c[Assistant District Attorney] Sean Spiering\u2019s office, they said in fentanyl deaths \u2014 well, really just drug deaths in general \u2014 they do not generally ask the court to cover payment for that because apparently, in North Carolina, fentanyl death is not considered murder,\u201d Holliday recounted.<\/p>\n The resulting gray area, where Holliday\u2019s mother is both a victim and not a victim, is something Holliday struggles with.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand how someone can sell someone a drug that inevitably killed them, and that\u2019s not murder,\u201d Holliday said.<\/p>\n Benhoff, a Wilmington native, raised Holliday and her younger sister through years of struggles with the addiction. She was introduced to crack cocaine at 19 and spiraled from there, especially after a near-fatal car accident in Raleigh in the mid-\u201990s, which left her with lifelong pain and an opioid dependency, according to Holliday.<\/p>\n Court records show Benhoff accumulated dozens of charges when she wasn\u2019t sober, cycling in and out of jails in Wake and New Hanover counties, a pattern that pained Holliday to watch.<\/p>\n By the winter of 2025, she\u2019d stopped talking to her mother, tired of watching her self-destruct. But a surprise bout of snow that January in Wilmington reconnected mother and daughter.<\/p>\n \u201cMy aunt had taken [my dog Cooper] when I had moved,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cWhen it snowed in Wilmington, I asked my aunt to send me some videos of Cooper in the snow. And my mom actually reached out and was like, \u2018Hey, Aunt Mimi sent two of these pictures.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The message rekindled their relationship, and they began talking every day. Holliday believed her mother was sober.<\/p>\n \u201cI know when my mom was in active addiction, she would basically disappear for weeks and months at a time \u2013 so no phone calls, no text messages, nothing,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cSo my entire family was under the impression that she was doing OK.\u201d<\/p>\n Even through their last conversation March 26, 2025, she had no reason to believe anything different.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talked for about two hours, and the last thing she said to me was she was going to go take a shower, and that she loved me,\u201d Holliday recalled. \u201cAnd I told her I loved her, too, that I\u2019d talk to her later.\u201d<\/p>\n Holliday is grateful for that last interaction.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that I was the last person she told she loved, and I was the last person to tell her \u2018I love you,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd in that moment, it hurts, but I find so much peace in knowing that she still heard it. \u2018I love you\u2019 was still embedded in her head even as she drove to go pick up a drug that inevitably killed her.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more In first override of 2026, NC lawmakers overturn Gov. Stein\u2019s veto of tax bill<\/a><\/p>\n Text messages from Benhoff\u2019s phone showed she texted a contact listed in her phone as \u201cRenee\u201d just before 8 p.m. that night, according to a search warrant in the case.<\/p>\n Renee Monique Waters, 40, is accused of selling fentanyl to Benhoff that night, and was arrested two months after Benhoff\u2019s death, according to her arrest warrant.<\/p>\n She is charged with death by distribution; possession of a Schedule II controlled substance with intent to sell, manufacture or distribute; and maintaining a vehicle\/dwelling\/place for the use of a controlled substance. She posted $250,000 secured bond two days after her arrest, court records show.<\/p>\n Benhoff\u2019s autopsy report shows nine wax baggies of crack cocaine were found in her sports bra; she died of fentanyl and cocaine toxicity, likely not long after sending \u201cRenee\u201d a text that she\u2019d made it home safely.<\/p>\n An acquaintance of Benhoff\u2019s tipped off police to Waters, stating she\u2019d been Benhoff\u2019s heroin dealer in the past, according to search warrants. GPS data from Benhoff\u2019s phone showed her arriving at Waters\u2019 home at 8:40 p.m. and returning to her house shortly after 9 p.m., the warrants state.<\/p>\n The wax bags found on Benhoff\u2019s body tested positive for fentanyl, and Benhoff\u2019s ex-boyfriend confirmed to police she\u2019d previously purchased fentanyl from a woman named Renee, according to search warrants.<\/p>\n During Waters\u2019 two days in jail, she allegedly contacted loved ones to ask them to remotely wipe her phone, which police had seized as evidence, according to a search warrant. Investigators who examined the phone believed conversations between Waters and Benhoff had been deleted, the warrant states.<\/p>\n Waters\u2019 trial is set for Oct. 26. She pleaded not guilty in a brief hearing April 13. Holliday plans to attend the trial; she wants to see justice served for her mother, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in active addiction, she still made sure that me and my little sister were taken care of,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cShe still did laundry. She still did all of the things that a mother would do, and she was a great mom.\u201d<\/p>\n The North Carolina Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Victim Compensation Program, said it could not comment on specific cases or possible legislation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do continue to support statutory changes that make the program more accessible to victims, including the extension last year of the amount of time victims of violent crime have to file a report with law enforcement,\u201d wrote spokesperson Charlotte Woolard in an email to The News & Observer.<\/p>\n