Court docs: Vancouver mom arrested after toddler dies of fentanyl overdose

Vancouver Police have arrested a woman they say is responsible for her 21-month-old daughter’s death.

According to court documents, the toddler was found dead in her crib by her mother at their house on Z Street in March 2024.

The toddler’s mother, later identified as 38-year-old Katherine Marie Richards, told officers she fed her daughter that afternoon and put her down for a nap. About four hours later she called 9-1-1 when she found her daughter unresponsive.

Police responding to the call described the house as cluttered with garbage throughout the home. They say they found clear crystal meth on a mirror in the basement of the home.

Lab tests later found the toddler tested positive for fentanyl and Narcan.

In follow-up interviews, Richards told police a friend had been staying in the home for about a week and said the friend had been smoking something off foil in the living room a day before the girl died.

When police told Richards her daughter died of fentanyl she replied " I’m f***ing careless" and that her friend must have dropped foil on the floor.

She also admitted that she started using fentanyl after her daughter died and that she had in fact administered two doses of Narcan to her daughter.

Police later interviewed the friend who said Richards and her husband were lying about not using fentanyl and that they had used it together in the past.

An arrest warrant was issued on September 9 after police learned that Richards’s biological mother had sent her a one-way plane ticket to Iowa where she lived.

According to jail and court records, Richards was arrested Tuesday on a first-degree manslaughter charge. She is due in court on Wednesday afternoon at 1:30.

https://katu.com/news/local/court-docs-vancouver-mom-arrested-after-toddler-dies-of-fentanyl-overdose

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Author: KATU News
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News post in at: September 12, 2024, 3:04 am.

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