BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The mother of an infant, who died from a fentanyl overdose in Baton Rouge earlier this year, was arrested and charged Thursday for the baby's death, police say.
Tiffany Thomason, 40, faces a charge of negligent homicide in the case. It was unknown if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
The coroner’s office said Thomason's baby had 87 nanograms of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid more lethal than heroin, per milliliter. It takes 12 nanograms to kill an adult, according to an affidavit obtained by The Advocate.
Police were called to the Baton Rouge home on Jan. 27 for an unresponsive child. The infant was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The coroner recently determined that the death was caused by a fentanyl overdose.
When told that her son had died of an overdose, Thomason told police that her sister had died of an overdose last year, The Advocate reported. Thomason said she had gotten her sister’s belongings out of storage and that her son may have come in contact with the drug there.
Last year, two toddlers died of fentanyl overdoses within four months in Baton Rouge. In both cases, the Department of Children and Family Services had received warnings that the children were in danger. In both cases, family members of the children were arrested following the infants’ deaths. In one case the agency had validated reports of abuse or neglect against the child’s mother in 2016, 2018 and 2021.
Those deaths launched demands for reform in the state department, which is tasked with keeping children safe. The head of Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services resigned nearly two weeks after the second child's death.
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