by Patrick H. Moore
Every child faces pitfalls during his or her formative years but very few children face the possibility of dying from a methadone overdose merely from drinking their mother’s breast milk. In fact, such a possibility seems so unlikely that it’s the sort of thing one might encounter in a fictional crime novel as opposed to a true crime report. But as they say, “reality bites”, and an 8-month-old Citrus Heights, California (Sacramento County) child is now dead from overdosing on methadone-laced mother’s milk. Doyle Murphy of the New York Daily News writes:
Ryder Salmen overdosed on Xanax, methadone and the painkiller Opana at 8 months old and now mother Sarah Stephens, 32, faces murder and child endangerment charges in Sacramento County. The drug addict mom was previously warned to stop breastfeeding after medical tests showed high levels of methadone in her son’s blood.
According to the police, Ryder’s death was at first a mystery. The Citrus Heights police found the boy dead in September 2012 after they were called to an apartment to check on an unresponsive infant. Toxicology reports later revealed a poisonous cocktail of drugs killed the child.
Because the child’s mother, Sarah Ann Stephens, continued to feed Ryder her poisonous breast milk even after she was warned that it was putting her son at risk, the Sacramento County District Attorney has now charged her with second-degree murder and felony child endangerment. The police have stated that Stephens intentionally fed the boy the lethal milk.
In a statement to Sacramento’s Fox 40, Ryder’s grandfather, Alan Salmen, said his family knew the baby was in trouble and fought to save the child:
“We reached out. We knew what was going on, ‘please give him to us. If you don’t have the time or don’t want to do it, please, we’re here.’”
Ryder’s mother, however, retained primary physical custody of Ryder even after an accidental methadone overdose put the baby boy, then two months old, in the hospital. Heartbreakingly, according to relatives, when Alan Salmen’s family did see Ryder, the boy suffered constant drug withdrawals which made him cross, irritable and ever so vulnerable.
“Whatever Ryder was, we loved him,” Salmen said. “He could cry in our arms 24 hours.”
Child advocates say Sacramento County Child Protective Services (CPS) was slow to react to the warning signs. Court documents indicate that Sarah Stephens was warned months before her son’s death to stop breastfeeding him because blood tests revealed that Ryder had high levels of methadone in his bloodstream. At the time, boy was just four months old. He had been brought to the hospital because he was lethargic.
Social workers then identified Ryder as an at-risk baby — a determination that should have prompted a safety plan if the infant was to remain in his mother’s custody. The records show that a social worker created such a plan, but it took a CPS manager three months to approve it. Ed Howard, senior counsel for the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law, has reviewed the case and has stated that the dreadfully slow response time was unacceptable:
“Is it their policy to wait three months to approve safety assessments for the children of drug-addicted mothers? This undermines the confidence about whether Sacramento County CPS is doing its job.”
CPS Deputy Director Michelle Callejas said approvals sometimes take awhile. In a later assessment, the agency also claimed Ryder faced a low risk of future mistreatment. Police, however, were unconvinced. A Citrus Heights cop cited Stephens for child endangerment after she drove off the road with Ryder in the back seat which led to another report to CPS. There is no evidence, however, that the agency responded with a second risk assessment or expedited its review of the “safety plan”.
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It’s easy to blame CPS and it does appear that the bureaucratically glacial response speed on the part of the agency certainly didn’t help matters. The bottom line, however, is that given that she had primary custody, protecting Ryder from any type of harm was his mother, Sarah Stephens, responsibility. Why she continued to feed Ryder her methadone-laced mother’s milk after she had been warned remains a mystery. Although the second-degree murder charges may not stick, Ms. Stephens will almost certainly be convicted of felony child endangerment and I would not be surprised to see her sentenced to several years in prison.