Crown wants jail for mom who let infant OD

A Winnipeg woman whose 13-month-old son died after suffering a fatal drug overdose in their Sherbrook Street apartment should go to prison for two years, a judge was told Thursday.

“To be clear, this was no accident,” Crown attorney Brett Rach told provincial court Judge Malcolm McDonald at a sentencing hearing for Latasha Stewart. “It was the foreseeable outcome of having dangerous and illegal substances around an infant.”

Stewart, 35, has pleaded guilty to one count of failing to provide the necessaries of life in connection to the Dec. 29, 2022, death of her son Romeo.

Court was told Stewart’s mother had been visiting the apartment around 11:30 p.m. and had just left when minutes later Stewart called her mother to say Romeo wasn’t breathing. The woman told Stewart to call 911, but when she returned to the apartment minutes later Stewart had not yet put in the call, a delay that “squandered” crucial minutes, Rach said.

Stewart called 911 and emergency responders arrived within minutes. A paramedic asked Stewart if “there was a chance” Romeo had been exposed to narcotics or opioids and she answered yes.

Paramedics administered naloxone to the child and spent 20 minutes trying to resuscitate him before taking him to Children’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

After learning Romeo had died, Stewart went to a washroom and overdosed on a mixture of heroin and fentanyl. She was resuscitated by hospital staff.

Police officers and an investigator with the medical examiner’s office went to Stewart’s apartment and found a straw, which was underneath a baby toy, that later tested positive for fentanyl, and two pieces of tin foil that tested positive for fentanyl and carfentanyl.

An autopsy confirmed the presence of carfentanyl, cocaine and cocaine metabolites in the child’s system.

When questioned by police, Stewart admitted to using cocaine and heroin and that she was aware there was cocaine in her kitchen cabinet and heroin in a bathroom cabinet.

“Society can understand and forgive the human frailties that lead to substance use, but it cannot accept that activity when it places the most vulnerable in immediate danger,” Rach said. “In the last few months Manitoba has seen too many deaths of infants due to negligent possession of drugs.”

Court was told Stewart was not living with Romeo’s father, Elliott Taylor, and that both had substance-abuse problems. Taylor died three weeks after Romeo. The cause of his death was not disclosed in court.

“It was the foreseeable outcome of having dangerous and illegal substances around an infant.”

“The devastation this has caused our family is something we will live with for the rest of our lives,” his mother Stephanie told court in a victim impact statement. “Elliott never stopped trying to be the best dad he could be to Romeo. Elliott loved his son and wanted to be a part of his life. The pain of losing his little boy was something he could not survive.”

Defence lawyer Jeremy Kostiuk suggested the drugs ingested by Romeo had been taken to the apartment by Taylor.

Rach called the suggestion a “red herring.”

“Ms. Stewart was aware the drugs were in her residence,” Rach said. “It doesn’t matter from the Crown’s perspective the avenue by which they get there.”

Kostiuk urged McDonald to allow Stewart to serve a 20-month conditional sentence in the community, arguing she has spent the last 15 months in a residential recovery program for women and has made great efforts to turn her life around.

“She took responsibility the best way someone can,” Kostiuk said. “Ms. Stewart has restructured her entire life around rehabilitation, healing and giving back to the community.”

Stewart told court she misses her son every day.

“It’s hard to put into words how remorseful I feel,” she said.

The judge was told Stewart and her family have not disclosed the location of Romeo’s remains to the Taylor family.

“It’s hard to put into words how remorseful I feel.”

“It’s obvious this has been a traumatic experience for everyone involved and that it has caused grief, dislocation and some degree of bitterness,” McDonald said.

“I don’t know everything about the relationship between the families, but I would encourage parties to at least share the information regarding the whereabout of the remains of the young child so the appropriate grieving can take place, for all persons involved.”

McDonald will sentence Stewart at a later date.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca