NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — A 17-year-old mother was arrested earlier this week after her 9-month-old son died after she put fentanyl in his bottle, thinking it was cocaine, according to multiple reports.
The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office said that on June 26, officers were called to a house about a baby boy who was not breathing and had no pulse, according to WJAX-TV. The house was located in Callahan, according to the Miami Herald.
The baby was taken to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead, WJAX reported.
According to an arrest report obtained by the news outlet, the boy’s mother at first lied to investigators about what happened to her son and said that she did not know what happened.
Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said in a news conference that the mother changed her story multiple times and then confessed, CNN reported. She reportedly said that she was tired so she filled the baby’s bottle with “what she thought was cocaine.”
Leeper said that the substance was actually fentanyl, CNN reported. The medical examiner said that the baby had about 10 times the fatal dose in his blood. His cause of death was a fentanyl overdose.
The coroner’s report was released on July 10, according to the Miami Herald. The mother was arrested the following day, WFLA reported.
“The suspect consciously did an act she must have known, or reasonably should have known, was likely to cause of the death, or great bodily injury, of her child,” Leeper said, according to CNN.
The mother has been charged with aggravated manslaughter and possession of a controlled substance, the Miami Herald reported. Her identity has not been released since she is a minor.
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