Multiple Parents Arrested for Fentanyl Death's
Fentanyl Victims: Infant and Toddler
Illicit fentanyl deaths continue to make the news almost daily with nation-wide cases involving recreational users and opioid addicts. The fine line between getting high and bottoming out in death is incredibly narrow. Fentanyl’s lethality amounts to two milligrams—small enough to fit on the tip of a sharpened pencil. That makes a contaminated space of a victim’s use or even as a cutting lab a monumental cleaning challenge for specialized crews.
Ebonee White Arrested on Decmber 2nd - Photo courtesy of WCBI News
While the vast majority of fentanyl overdoses occur with adults, there is an alarming trend of young children—the most innocent and vulnerable—falling prey to their parents’ foolishness. In recent cases, an infant died as a result of her mother’s drug use in Mississippi while a 15-month-old toddler died as the result of his two parents’ drug-infested home life styles in Riverside County in Southern California.
In Oxford, Mississippi, the details are sketchy, but the story is horrendous. Ebonee White, 31, called police on September 15, 2021, when her baby daughter had stopped breathing. The police sent an ambulance that transported her to a nearby hospital. She was pronounced dead on arrival. An autopsy by the Mississippi Medical Examiner’s Office several weeks later revealed that the infant had died of fentanyl toxicity.
White was arrested on December 2 and charged with manslaughter—culpable negligence. It’s unclear if the baby had accidentally ingested powder or inhaled a tiny spec of the drug—or even if her mom had been smoking fentanyl. What is clear is that the Oxford Police Department after it further investigated the incident ordered her to be held on a $100,000 bond.
In September 2020 in Riverside County, a couple deep into counterfeit drug use were suspected of murdering their 15-month-old son. He mysteriously stopped breathing in the family’s dilapidated and filthy trailer. His mother, Sandy Acuna, told authorities he had climbed out of his crib and swallowed a white, circular pain pill. She said it was from a prescribed drug that she was using from a difficult birth of her 4-month-old daughter. However, authorities investigated this claim and found no prescriptions had been written for her.
What was uncovered was alarming. The investigators found photos on Acuna’s cell phone of pills that were consistent with the type of illicit drugs on the black market that were laced with fentanyl. Her blood was tested which revealed that she had fentanyl in her system. Her husband, Adler Metcalf, likewise had fentanyl in his blood system as well as marijuana.
Investigators tested the young daughter. She too had marijuana in her bloodstream. The autopsy of Adler Acuna Jr. found that he had died of acute fentanyl toxicity. They did not find a pill in his stomach, but five ounces of fentanyl paste. The authorities dug deeper and discovered that both parents were supplying doses of fentanyl and marijuana to their son and daughter. It was a sick picture of two adults apparently trying to make their family a community of drug abusers—start the kids young to create addicts.
Riverside County police arrested both parents in November 2021. Initially Metcalf had been charged with child endangerment for the death of the son. But upon review of the findings Metcalf and Acuna were charged with murder.
At the time of the charge, the Riverside County DA’s Office said it was then prosecuting nine murder cases related to the 280 deaths attributed to fentanyl. The crises shows no signs of letting up. When it comes so close to home, parents are rightfully dismayed about the remote possibility of their young children inadvertently becoming exposed to the lethal drug.
