KANSAS CITY —A Jackson County judge sentenced a Kansas City woman to seven years in prison for her two-year-old child’s fatal fentanyl poisoning, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson.
In December, 33-year-old Tierra O’Field pled guilty to Involuntary Manslaughter in the 1st Degree last month.
According to court records, Kansas City police and EMS were dispatched on Oct. 11, 2022, to a Kansas City apartment where they located a two-year-old child who was cold to the touch, with rigor mortis and beyond medical help.
Detectives interviewed the child’s mother, the defendant, who said she fell asleep in a chair in the living room with her child. She was awoken by her sister and mother knocking at the front door. The defendant got up to answer the door, but the child remained on the chair, and she thought he was still asleep. When the defendant went back to check on him, the child was unresponsive and cold to the touch. She called 911.
During the interview with detectives, the defendant said she kept fentanyl in a baggie in her bra and when she checked on her child, she saw the baggie was on the chair and empty. When she moved her child, she saw particles of fentanyl on the chair under where he was sleeping. When detectives interviewed the defendant’s mother, she said the defendant struggles with drug addiction.
When police processed the scene, they also found a glass pipe on the chair along with an empty plastic bag and a torch lighter. On the floor next to the chair was a red straw and a whitish rock-like substance. Detectives located multiple pieces of tin foil with burnt residue in multiple locations in the apartment along with five syringes with apparent residue.
The Jackson County Medical Examiner found the child’s manner of death was a result of fentanyl intoxication.