2 parents indicted in unrelated deaths

A Franklin County grand jury has indicted two parents in separate, unrelated cases in which children died in their care.

Steven M. Wallen, 26, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child endangering for the Sept. 10 accidental shooting death of a 3-year-old son involving a gun left unsecured at a house in the 3000 block of Wade Road in Madison Township.

Nina L. Straty, 24, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child endangering for the April 27 drug-overdose death of her less than 1-month-old infant daughter, Loucia Kinsell.

Both indictments were issued Tuesday.

Wallen, who is listed at a Pickerington address in court records, was in the Wade Road home with his twin sons when the shooting occurred, township police reported. Police initially said that the victim shot himself with a gun he found while the father was sleeping. Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Wednesday that the shooting occurred after both boys found the gun.

In Straty’s case, an autopsy by the Franklin County Coroner’s Office determined that her newborn daughter’s death resulted from “acute intoxication by methadone and cocaine,” O’Brien said. The incident occurred at Straty’s home in the 400 block of Wyandotte Avenue in the University District.

Columbus police officers and fire division medics were dispatched to the home on a report of a baby not breathing. Medics performed CPR but the infant girl was pronounced dead about 8:10 a.m.

Straty told police she fell asleep with the baby and when she awoke the baby wasn’t breathing. She was arrested Tuesday after the grand jury indictment. Loucia Kinsell’s death is the 126th homicide in Columbus this year, police said, the second highest behind only the 139 homicides in 1991.