S.C. woman accused of concealing her 1-year-old daughter’s fatal fentanyl overdose for hours
An Aiken County, South Carolina, woman has been charged in the death of her nearly 2-year-old daughter after deputies said she failed to report the child had overdosed on fentanyl for hours.
According to an incident report, on Jan. 20 at around 9:35 p.m., officers responded to a home in a mobile home park in reference to an unresponsive child.
An arriving Deputy observed police officers loading the girl into a patrol vehicle to take her to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.
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Alexzandra Howell, 23, told deputies she drove her daughter to a hospital in Augusta due to the girl suffering from bad migraines.
Howell said on the way to the hospital, her daughter began to act normal and stated that she felt fine.
Howell told deputies that she drove to the hospital and sat in the parking lot for about an hour and a half, where she monitored the status of her daughter.
Howell said she then drove back home and her daughter fell asleep in the vehicle just as she turned onto their street.
According to the incident report, Howell said she carried her daughter into their home while she remained asleep and laid her on the girl’s bed.
Before leaving to go to the store for cigarettes, Howell said she checked on her daughter and noticed she felt a little cold at that time but was still breathing. She said she took her daughter off the bed and placed her on the floor next to the air vent to warm up.
Another woman in the mobile home came into Howell’s room and alerted her to the fact that the child’s lips were purple and she appeared to not be breathing.
Howell said she and the other woman began administering CPR on the child while she called 911.
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Howell was transported to the Aiken County Detention Center for pending charges of possession of fentanyl.
An arrest warrant stated there was probable cause that Howell caused the death of her daughter by committing child abuse and neglect by creating an unsafe environment.
The warrant states that Howell engaged in consistent abuse of non-prescribed drugs and narcotics and left those drugs within reach of her children.
The warrant continues to say, “Upon realizing the child was in medical distress, the subject concealed the child and the active emergency from others failing to provide the child with required immediate, life-saving medical attention, carrying out normal activities, and ignoring the medical emergency for hours, depriving the child of medical attention and demonstrating extreme indifference to the life of her child.”
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Toxicology reports indicated that the girl ingested a fatal amount of fentanyl.
Howell is charged with homicide by child abuse, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years to life in prison, and possession of fentanyl.
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