PerfectChaos
QueenGEEK
Lacey Kertz took Vicodin, morphine and Xanax pills and used methamphetamine in the hours before she nursed her son on the night of Oct. 27.
Carson Swyres, 22 months, had been fussy, so Kertz also gave him two melatonin pills to help him sleep. She told police she might have given him a children’s Tylenol as well, but she couldn’t remember.
And when she saw that the toddler had dumped a bottle of anti-depressants onto a bed, and she even pulled one of the pills from his lips, she didn’t seek medical help.
The next day, Carson would be dead.
An autopsy found that he had died of a morphine overdose. He also had amphetamines, opiates and meth in his urine, according to toxicology reports from the St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s Office, and he suffered from pneumonia.
On Wednesday, nearly seven months after Carson’s death, Jefferson County authorities arrested Kertz, 26, on a charge of child abuse or neglect resulting in death.
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Kertz told Jefferson County sheriff’s investigators that she took the pills and meth about 24 to 36 hours before Carson’s death. She also said she allowed him to breastfeed the evening before he died as a “comfort” to help him sleep, according to court documents. She said she didn’t know if he had ingested any breast milk.
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First, she told authorities that Carson hadn’t opened the bottle, then altered her story to say that he had dumped the pills out onto a bed, according to court documents. She later changed that story and said that she had seen a pill on Carson’s lips but had taken it away and placed her finger down his throat to force him to vomit, without success.
Kertz said that Carson started “wheezing” and “acting funny” about 1:30 a.m. and that she held him until he fell asleep, according to court documents.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_fd569046-9012-53ab-84f9-87b0af41a3ca.html