Mom accused of poisoning her four-year-old child with Benadryl to fake seizure disorder
A Texas mother has been arrested after allegedly poisoning her four-year-old daughter with Benadryl to fake a seizure disorder.
In June, Jesika Jones, 30, had sought medical attention for her child at the Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth claiming the child was having seizures, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
According to an arrest warrant obtained by the Star-Telegram, Ms Jones admitted giving her child high doses of the allergy relief pills in an interview with detectives from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
She was arrested on 14 July and charged with endangerment of and injury to a child. According to inmate records, she is being held at Tarrant County Corrections Centre on $5,000 bond.
The arrest warrant states that Ms Jones took her child to the ER department of the Fort Worth children’s hospital “multiple times” claiming she had been suffering seizures.
The young girl was admitted several times in recent months and urine samples detected Benadryl in her system during those visits.
After the child’s admission to the hospital on 19 June, Ms Jones was reportedly seen taking her daughter to a bathroom over the course of three days. About one hour after each of these bathroom visits, the child began experiencing body tremors, dilated pupils, an increased heart rate, and was unable to stand, the Star-Tribune reported.
Doctors said in the affidavit the symptoms were consistent with Benadryl poisoning.
Despite Ms Jones telling hospital staff she hadn’t given her child any medication, the antihistamine was present in the girl’s urine samples on 19, 20 and 23 June.
The hospital’s child abuse pediatrician Jamye Coffman notified the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office on 23 June of their concerns that Ms Jones was drugging her child.
In an interview the next day with Detective Michael Weber, Ms Jones admitted that she was in possession of Benadryl but denied giving it to her child.
The mother claimed that her four-year-old had been experiencing seizures since November 2021.
When confronted with the positive urine samples, the arrest warrant states that Ms Jones broke down and admitted to giving her child four to five adult Benadryl pills several times during the hospital stay. Empty and partially used Benadryl packs were subsequently found in Ms Jones’ purse.
She reportedly went through 42 Benadryl pills from June 19 to June 24.
Investigators also found an empty bottle of the sedative Trazodone and a bottle of Hydroxyzine, an antihistamine, that was missing 64 pills in her purse.
The child also tested positive for those two drugs. Doctors told authorities that she displayed signs of severe Benadryl poisoning, which can be fatal.
In an interview with detectives, Ms Jones allegedly said: “I think I’m a horrible person. I don’t love myself. I don’t like who I am. I’m tired of living life like this. I’m tired of hurting people emotionally... medically.”
Detectives interviewed a man who lived with Ms Jones and her daughter for three years, who claimed he had reported her to Child Protective Services over concerns she suffered “Munchausen by proxy”.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness where a child’s caretaker makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like a child is sick.
