PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Providence man on Wednesday admitted to murder for his role in the overdose death of a 29-year-old Cranston woman to whom he sold heroin laced with a lethal dose of the powerful painkiller, fentanyl.

Aaron Andrade, 25, pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in the death of Kristen Coutu, who was found unresponsive in her mother’s car parked on Hubbard Street near Farmington Avenue shortly before 11 p.m. on Feb. 17, 2014, after taking “nearly pure fentanyl”.

It marked the first time in Rhode Island a drug dealer was convicted of murder in connection with an overdose death. Under the plea agreement, the state dismissed two drug charges.

Superior Court Judge Kristin E. Rodgers sentenced Andrade to 40 years in prison, with 20 to serve and the remainder of the sentenced suspended.

“Her death should not be in vain,” Rodgers said as Coutu’s mother looked on in tears. “It should send a message. It should send a message to drug dealers,” Rodgers said of the sentence.

Rodgers commented that Coutu's death and Andrade's sentencing left two families grieving as mothers' of both the victim and the defendant looked on. The judge lamented that Coutu would never have the opportunity to prove that she had beaten an addiction that had bedeviled her young life.

First, Kristen's mother, Sue Coutu, gave a searing statement that left most in the courtroom near tears, including the judge.

Coutu spoke of being a single mother to Kristen, her only child. "She was quite a force to be reckoned with, but she was mine," said Coutu, an assistant principal at Cranston High School East.

Her daughter had a taste for helping underdogs. "She was always picking up strays, people that is ...," she said. "She would say 'If I don't help them, who will?'"

She said it was one such person, a veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder, who became Kristen Coutu's boyfriend and first injected her with heroin. From there, she struggled with addiction and bipolar disorder. "She was always so afraid she wouldn't have a future," Coutu said.

Kristen Coutu had been discharged from a treatment facility in Texas just two days before her death because her insurance would not pay for more than 30 days. She told her mother she was going to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and have dinner with a friend the night of her death. Instead, she contacted Andrade.

Kristen arranged to buy “D” or “Diesel,” from Andrade in the area in which her body was found. When officers came to the door of her house in Cranston, Sue Coutu recalled, "All I could say is please don't tell me my daughter is dead. Please don't tell me my daughter is dead. ... She died without my arms around her."

Andrade, too, heavyset and appearing circumspect, addressed the court: "The actions that I did that day, I never meant to hurt nobody."

He apologized to Sue Coutu and his own mother, who like Coutu, raised him without the help of his father. "She's been telling me for years to stop doing what you're doing," he said. "I just want to sat sorry for both of them."

Andrade’s indictment for murder over his role in Coutu’s overdose death marked a first in Rhode Island since the rash of overdoses related to drugs containing lethal doses of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than heroin, prosecutors said. Hundreds of Rhode Islanders have died in what has been billed a crisis.

Fentanyl is increasingly added to heroin — to stretch the supply and increase profits — without the dealers alerting users. Even slight traces of fentanyl can significantly increase the risk of death, according to health officials.

The increase in fentanyl-related overdose deaths in Rhode Island mirrors a national trend. Deaths from synthetic opioids, including illicit fentanyl, rose 73 percent in 2015, according to the most recent available data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Andrade is the brother of purported gang member Justice Andrade, 23, who was sentenced on Monday as his mother looked on to serve two consecutive life sentences plus three years in prison for gunning down Ty-Shon Perry in 2014.