Police: East Hills toddler ingested fentanyl from sippy cup given to her by her mother
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The little girl’s mom called it a “happydrink,” police said.
Pittsburgh police officers responding to a call for a baby who wasn’t breathing discovered the red liquid in April inside a pink sippy cup on 17-month-old Charlette Napper-Talley’s bed in her EastHills apartment.
Days after Charlette died in the hospital, the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office got results from two tests; they both indicated the presence of fentanyl in the toddler’s blood, as did another screening in May by an independentlab.
The inside of the sippy cup also tested positive for fentanyl, police said, and on Friday the medical examiner’s office listed Charlette’s April 5 death as a homicide due to fentanyl poisoning.
On Friday night, Charlette’s mother, Jhenea Pratt, 23, was taken into custody and charged with homicide and endangering thewelfare of a child.
She is in the Allegheny County Jail.
Investigators said two people were in charge of Charlette on the day of her death — Ms. Pratt and her boyfriend, identified in court paperworkas Albert Williams.
Mr. Williams told detectives that he was watching Charlette during the day at the home in the 2200 block of East Hills Drive while Ms. Pratt was in school at Community College of Allegheny County’s Homewood-Brushton center. He gave her fish sticks and a drink in herpink sippy cup.
Mr. Williams and Charlette picked up Ms. Pratt at school and returned home by 2 p.m. before Mr. Williams went to get marijuana for Ms. Pratt, according to a police affidavit.
Both Mr. Williams and Ms. Pratt denied using, transporting or storing heroin or fentanyl, police said.
Asked how fentanyl might have gotten into the cup, Ms. Pratt told police that it might have been from