A Washington mother is facing charges after allegedly injecting her three young children with heroin — which she called “feel-good medicine” — to make them fall asleep, according to local police.
Ashlee Hutt of Spanaway and Leroy McIver, who is the children’s father, are facing multiple charges after Child Protective Services was contacted by a person who claimed to have seen them injecting their children with heroin last year, reports local station KIRO7.
Hutt, 24, and McIver, 25, have both pleaded not guilty to three counts each of child assault, child endangerment and delivery of a controlled substance to a person under the age of 18 after being arraigned in Pierce County Superior Court, reported The News Tribune. Hutt was arraigned on Monday, and both parents remain in custody, reports Fox8.
The parents allegedly injected their young children, ages 6, 4 and 2, with the dangerous, illegal opioid. CPS removed the children from their custody after investigating and finding heroin, needles and rat droppings in the home, reports The News Tribune.
“Some of the statements they [the children] made were very disturbing about how they would get sleeping juice to go to sleep and it was injected into them by needle,” Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ed Troyer told local station KIRO7.
The 6-year-old boy told CPS that “his mom and dad give him and his sisters the ‘feel-good medicine,'” which made them fall asleep, according to a probable-cause affidavit cited by KIRO7. The boy said the “medicine” was a white powder mixed with water, which his parents injected into them using a needle.
The 2-year-old girl tested positive for heroin via a hair follicle test, reports The News Tribune. Traces of the drug were found in a second child, although the level was below the amount considered needed for confirmation. A third child tested negative for drugs, KIRO7 reports, noting that puncture marks and bruising from needle injections were also found on the children’s bodies.
All three children were removed from the family home in November 2015 after the CPS investigation and are currently in foster homes, where they are “doing well,” Troyer said.
