Girl’s death in care treated as suspicious

Edmonton police are treating the case of an eight-year-old girl who died in government care in January as a suspicious death.

The girl, who cannot be named under Alberta’s Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act, was living in an Alberta group home when she died in her sleep Jan. 5.

She died of a drug overdose, according to an autopsy report the girl’s mother recently received. “It’s sickening, the things I read in the report,” the mother said.

T he autop s y rep or t states the amount of trichloroethanol found in the girl’s system was “within the range of concentration previously reported in adult fatalities,” but the circumstances leading to that elevated level are unclear.

The girl was prescribed the sleeping medication chloral hydrate on a daily basis. “Chloral hydrate is eliminated from the human body by being rapidly converted to trichloroethanol,” the report states.

The report concluded the girl’s death could have been caused by “a medication dispensing error with excess medication possibly administered.”

It also said there were times a locked drug cabinet was not used and the girl’s medications were kept on top of the stove in the group home’s kitchen area.

The girl’s mother said she voiced concerns “on numerous occasions” about her daughter’s health and medications, but no one listened.

She described her daughter as a social butterfly who loved swimming and going to playgrounds.

“She was a very sweet little girl,” she said. “She did not deserve this.”

The case is still in the preliminary stages, said police spokeswoman Anna Batchelor.