A 5-month-old baby girl died in her bassinet of dehydration and starvation three or four days after her mom and dad died from suspected heroin overdoses.
Summer Chambers and her parents, Jason Chambers and Chelsea Cardaro, were all found in their Kernville, Pennsylvania, home on Thursday, December 22. Cambria County coroner Jeffrey Lees said Chambers, 27, and Cardaro, 19, had been dead for about seven days when family friend James Grant made the gruesome discovery, WJAC-TV reported.
Grant, who told the station, “I knew there were problems,” had gone to check on the couple after no one had heard from them for several days. “I climbed in through the kitchen window, and he was downstairs and they were upstairs,” he said. Grant added, “They cared for their daughter. And for two flawed people they did their best to hold it together.”
It wasn’t the first time that a drug overdose occurred at the residence. Authorities were called to the house in November after Chambers overdosed. Child welfare workers later met with Chambers, Cardaro and their daughter. “They checked out the house, and it was appropriate to a child living there,” District Attorney Kelly Callihan told the Associated Press. “There was plenty of food and the child seemed well taken care of.”
The couple moved to Pennsylvania from New York in May.
“It’s an unfortunate incident where they both possibly overdosed at the same time — and being from out of town, not having anybody in town — it was too long for anybody to notice that they were missing,” Johnstown police Captain Chad Miller told the AP.
Officials say there was evidence of heroin found on the scene. Toxicology results are pending.
