Infant Dies Of Heroin Addiction, Parents Charged With Murder

An infant girl died of a heroin addiction after being breast fed from her drug-addicted mother. Redding, California police arrested Heather Rose Brown and Daylon Michael Reed and charged the 21-year-olds with first-degree murder and child abuse.

Emergency personnel received a call and went to a room at the Hilltop Lodge where they found the infant in a hotel room, alone and not breathing. Police said the infant was rushed to Mercy Medical Center in Redding and pronounced dead.

Police Sgt. John Poletski told Record Searchlight the couple refused to take the infant to the hospital. Most unfortunately, the newborn, Dae-lynn Rose, died from drug addiction symptoms and neglect.

Later, an autopsy report revealed the 5-day-old newborn’s cause of death was “polypharmacy-heroin and methamphetamine dependence/addiction.”

An investigative police report states the following.

“After the victim was medically transported from the motel, both parents stayed behind and smoked more heroin.”

Sgt. Poletski added.

“The doctor who performed the autopsy also wrote that the level of methamphetamine in the victim could be toxic, even in an adult.”

The police investigation actually started on October 30, 2014, when police responded to a call from the Hampton Inn.

Sgt. Poletski said when they arrived at the hotel, they found a makeshift delivery room. The hotel staff reported to police investigators they found blood in the bathtub, on the bed, on towels, and on the floor. When investigators searched the room, they found a garbage bag with evidence that a birth had occurred.

Police were told that Heather Brown and Daylon Reed rented the room; however, the two drug addicts and dealers could not be found.

Five days later, police received a call about the infant dying at the Hilltop Lodge. It was then that they finally caught up with Brown and Reed. Police obtained a warrant and questioned the couple while conducting a search.

According to Sgt. Poletski, police found methamphetamine, cash, drug paraphernalia, and heroin in the room. They also found baby bottles with fluid inside that was later determined to be Heather’s breast milk.

Police arrested the couple and conducted an interview. Brown and Reed admitted to renting the hotel room on October 30, 2014 to deliver the infant. The couple told police they didn’t want to give birth to the infant at a hospital because they feared the newborn would be taken away from them because Heather used heroin during her pregnancy.

Heather’s explanation was that if hospital personnel knew she was using heroin while pregnant, they would take custody of the child. The couple added Dae-lynn Rose showed signs of heroin withdrawals after being born.

In a news release, Sgt. Poletski briefly commented about Heather Brown’s condition.

“Brown continued to use heroin and started using methamphetamine while breastfeeding her baby.”

One of the baby bottles containing Heather Brown’s breastmilk tested positive for amphetamines and methamphetamines.

Brown claimed she stopped smoking meth about seven months into her pregnancy. Heather added, after giving birth to the infant girl, she started smoking heroin two or three days later.

Heather Brown admitted she knew she was transferring heroin and methamphetamine to the infant through her breast milk, but did it anyway, according to an investigative report.

Heather Brown posted a message on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe, asking for donations to pay for a headstone for Dae-lynn Rose. In her appeal for donations, Brown said any money left over would be donated to the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Foundation “to help prevent something happening like that to another family.”

Friday afternoon, the page was removed.

Daylon Reed is being held without bail and Heather Brown’s bail is set at $1.1 million for the first-degree murder of her infant daughter, Dae-lynn Rose.

[Featured image via Jim Shultz/Redding.com]