Jury convicts mother in her child’s death from fentanyl
A jury Tuesday afternoon found an East Hills mother guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fentanyl poisoning death last year of her 17month-old daughter, who ingested the lethal drug from a sippy cup.
Jhenea Pratt, 23, was also found guilty of endangering the welfare of children. Jurors rejected convicting Ms. Pratt of first- or third-degree murder.
A sentencing date has not yet been set by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark V. Tranquilli.
Ms. Pratt had no visible reaction to the verdict.
The jury of nine men and three women got the case late Monday afternoon and resumed deliberations Tuesday morning. They met for about six hours before delivering the verdict.
Ms. Pratt was accused of providing a pink sippy cup containing fentanyl — what one detective testified during trial was enough to “kill two horses” — to her daughter, Charlette
Napper-Talley, on April 5, 2018.
“Jhenea has always maintained that she would never intentionally hurt Charlette,” Ms. Pratt’s lawyer, Brandon Herring, said.
He declined further comment, stating he would have more to say on the day of sentencing.
How the fentanyl got into the sippy cup, and who put it there, were matters of contention. Ms. Pratt denied using, transporting or storing heroin or fentanyl, police said.
Mr. Herring suggested during his closing argument that Ms. Pratt’s boyfriend had something to do with the presence of the fentanyl, not his client, but the jury wasn’t swayed.
The boyfriend, Albert Williams, did acknowledge to police that he had given Charlette a sippy cup on the morning of her death. But, police wrote in the complaint, “We also learned that if Charlette had ingested fentanyl during the time frame Williams had her she would have died very shortly after ingesting it.”
Instead, the girl was still alive when police say Ms. Pratt gave her another drink “during the afternoon hours” — the fatal one — after Mr. Williams had already left the house.
“Jhenea Pratt was the only person [caring for Charlette] during these hours,” the complaint said.
In closing arguments Monday, the prosecution linked Charlette’s death to Ms. Pratt’s desire to smoke pot.
The truth is that Ms. Pratt wanted to “sit back, relax and smoke marijuana,” Assistant District Attorney Diana Page told jurors. “That baby was getting in the way of her enjoying her pastime.”
Pittsburgh police discovered a red liquid inside a pink sippy cup on Charlette’s bed in her East Hills apartment after responding to a call just after 6 p.m. on April 5, 2018, for a baby who wasn’t breathing.
Days after Charlette died in the hospital, the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office received results from two tests. Both indicated the presence of fentanyl in the toddler’s blood, as did another screening in May by an independent lab.
The inside of the cup also tested positive for fentanyl, police said, and the medical examiner’s office listed Charlette’s death as a homicide due to fentanyl poisoning.