MOTHER WHO 'KILLED HER BABY WITH METH-LACED BREAST MILK'

[Daanyeer]

Mother who 'killed her baby with meth-laced breast milk' charged with manslaughter
By Daily Mail Reporter

23rd July 2011


A 26-year-old woman has been ordered to stand trial in the death of her newborn son after he drank her methamphetamine-laced breast milk.
Maggie Jean Wortman, of Humboldt County, California, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment.
Deputy District Attorney Ben McLaughlin said that his office is considering whether to upgrade the charge.


He told the Times-Standard of Eureka prosecutors may pursue voluntary manslaughter or second-degree murder based on evidence presented during Wednesday's preliminary hearing.
Court filings show Wortman admitted to using meth during her pregnancy and after her children were born and passed on the drug through her breast milk.

Wortman took her six-week old son, Michael Acosta III, to an area hospital late last year when she noticed he had stopped breathing.
Toxicology reports on this body came back positive for meth.
Worthman's 19-month-old daughter also tested positive for the drug.

Wortman was initially arrested in January but was freed after posting $50,000 bail.
She was returned to police custody in April after failing a court-mandated drug test.
Wortman's case is not unprecedented. In 2003, a Riverside, California woman was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for murdering her newborn son by feeding him meth-contaminated breast milk.

That conviction was overturned by an appellate judge citing faulty jury instructions given by the trial judge.
In 2005, a Salem, Oregon woman pleaded guilty to child endangerment for smoking meth while breast-feeding her nine-month old son, reports the Huffington Post.

If convicted, Wortman faces up to nine years in prison.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1SwQPrryW