A teenage mother from Florida has been charged with aggravated manslaughter and possession of a controlled substance after allegedly administering a lethal dose of fentanyl to her own 9-month-old son.
A teenage mother in Florida is accused of putting fentanyl into her baby’s bottle thinking it was cocaine, which resulted in the baby boy’s death. https://t.co/paUOkwyeqj
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 15, 2023
The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office received a distressing 911 call on June 26, reporting that an infant inside a residence was unresponsive and not breathing. Promptly responding to the call, a deputy sheriff performed CPR on the child, but despite efforts at revival, the baby was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby Jacksonville hospital.
Initially, the 17-year-old mother, whose identity remains unreleased, claimed ignorance of what had transpired, leaving authorities searching for answers. However, as subsequent interviews unfolded and a coroner’s report released on July 10 revealed the cause of death to be a fentanyl overdose, her story took a shocking turn.
Finally, on July 11, she admitted to intentionally drugging her son. According to her, she was fatigued and merely wished for her baby to sleep. With this misguided intent, she purportedly added what she believed to be cocaine to the boy’s baby bottle.
The devastating turnout would reveal that the substance she fed the young boy was not cocaine at all but rather the highly potent and dangerous drug fentanyl.
During a press conference, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper disclosed the distressing details, revealing, “On July 10, we received information from the medical examiner’s office that the child had 29 nanograms per milliliter of blood in his system, and the cause of death was ruled as a ‘fentanyl overdose.’”
Leeper went on to state that a mere 3 nanograms per milliliter of blood could be fatal for an average adult. To put this into perspective, the amount of fentanyl discovered in the baby’s system was enough to end the lives of approximately ten adults.
Expressing his disbelief and anguish, Leeper questioned, “Who does that? What mother would do that?”
“That’s not normal. That is sick. It’s beyond my imagination why a mother would do that to her child. No one should lose their life to this terrible, deadly drug — especially an innocent baby.”
In a bid to shed light on the sequence of events, Sheriff Leeper further clarified, “Now, it’s normal to give your child a baby bottle when they’re tired. What is not normal is what the mother put in the baby bottle to get him to go to sleep. She got the baby’s bottle, filled it with formula, then went into the bathroom and found a pill bottle… with what she thought was cocaine.”
In an interview with WJXT-TV, the child’s father, Phillip Word, also 17 years old, conveyed hopes that the mother faces even more severe criminal charges. Speaking to First Coast News, the grandfather said he hopes the woman “gets the maximum sentence she can” for the death which the family believe was totally avoidable.
While officials confirmed that other adults were present in the home at the time, there is currently no evidence suggesting their awareness of the mother’s actions.
