Parents Charged After Infant Died With Fentanyl in His System: Police

After a toxicology report determined an 11-month-old Indiana boy died with multiple drugs in his system, including fentanyl and a powerful sedative, his parents are facing multiple charges, according to local police.

Warrants were issued for both parents on October 6 in connection with the little boy's death last month, and on Monday police arrested the baby's mother, 27-year-old Kaytlen Sha Dossett of Evansville, Indiana, on several neglect charges, including neglect causing death, Vanderburgh County Confinement Center online records show.

Police are still looking for the infant's father, 30-year-old Taylor Mitchell Fischer, who also faces neglect and drug charges, the Evansville Police Department (EPD) said in a statement posted to Facebook on Tuesday.

The warrants for the arrest of Dossett and Fischer were filed two days after the Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office received the results of the baby's postmortem blood draw, according to the affidavit. The results showed the boy's body contained trace amounts of fentanyl, xylazine—a powerful veterinary sedative also known as "Tranq" that the Drug Enforcement Administration says is often mixed with fentanyl—and "4-ANPP," which is a fentanyl precursor, EPD said. The baby also "showed a presumptive positive for Naloxone," which is a drug given to people who overdose on opioids.

Newsweek reached out via email on Wednesday to the EPD for comment and an update on the case.

EPD officers were called just before 11 p.m. on September 11 regarding a medical emergency involving a baby at a residence on North Spring Street in Evansville. The 11-month-old boy was identified in an obituary as Carsen Taylor Fischer.

Dossett called 911 that night and told dispatchers that her baby wasn't breathing and that his lips were blue, according to the affidavit.

When police arrived, they found Dossett carrying the "unresponsive victim" and Fisher also at the home. Paramedics arrived and performed life-saving measures on the baby, who was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead.

At the scene, officers said they could smell "the odor of marijuana" coming from the house and observed narcotics paraphernalia "in plain sight," EPD said in the statement. After obtaining a search warrant for the residence, detectives located paraphernalia and narcotics, including psilocybin mushrooms, marijuana, and a "crystal-like substance" that tested positive for methamphetamine.

The boy's father "appeared to be impaired" at the scene and during initial questioning, according to the affidavit, which notes that Fischer later tested positive for "multiple drugs," including fentanyl and methamphetamine. Dossett tested positive for marijuana.

Two other children were found inside the home and were unharmed, police said. They were placed with the state's Department of Children's Services. Dossett and Fischer were taken to EPD Headquarters for questioning where the mother said that she placed her son on the couch to sleep around 8:00 p.m. after she had briefly left the boy in the case of Fischer while she made a quick trip to Target.

She told police that she was sitting in the same room as the baby for "most of the time" that he was sleeping on the couch and said when she decided it was time to go to bed a few hours later that she found the baby unresponsive.

During an interview with EPD, Dossett reportedly said the little boy might have "gotten ahold of something" that was lying on the floor of the home, according to the court documents. She said that if he did, it wasn't hers.

Dossett is being held in the Vanderburgh County jail on a $250,000 cash bond.
EPD is urging anyone with information about Fischer or his whereabouts to call 911.