Parents charged in death of infant
QUINCY, Mass. — A couple accused of killing their fivemonth-old daughter by giving her a bottle of formula with heroin in it were charged with manslaughter on Friday.
Ryan Barry and Ashley Cyr were arrested Friday. They pleaded not guilty and were ordered held on $200,000 cash bail. The couple’s daughter, Mya, died in September 2011, when the family lived in Marshfield, a half-hour drive southeast of Quincy.
Police responded to an emergency call and found the baby on the living room floor with her grandmother performing CPR on her, Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz’s office said. The baby was pronounced dead soon after.
Police said they found three grams of heroin and hypodermic needles on a shelf in a bedroom shared by Barry, Cyr, the baby and her two sisters, ages three and four.
Prosecutor Frank Middleton said Barry told police that Cyr was reckless in her drug use and that he had seen her snort heroin off a Dr. Seuss book and then leave the book on the floor where the kids could get at it.
Middleton said in court that Barry told police he had made the baby’s last bottle by mixing two ounces of formula with two ounces of water. He said when Barry was pressed on how the heroin could have gotten into the bottle he said maybe someone had cleaned a dirty syringe in the water bottle he used to make the formula.