GUILTY FL - Aniya Simmons, 4 mos, dies of drug OD, Altamonte Springs, 29 Oct 2003

Casshew

Former Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2003
Messages
27,884
Reaction score
88
[font=Arial, Helvetica] ALTAMONTE SPRINGS -- Leesa Simmons just wanted her fussy, 4-month-old daughter Aniya to go to sleep, so she fed the baby some Dimetapp and put her to bed. It's something she had done before, she later told a deputy.

This time, though, Aniya did not wake up. After a frantic 911 call, paramedics arrived and tried to revive the baby. But it was too late.

A lab found she had been given too much of the cold and allergy medicine.

One hundred times too much, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

Simmons, 22, was arrested in February and charged with aggravated manslaughter. She faces up to 30 years in prison.

Her decision to calm her baby with an over-the-counter drug is one other parents have made when all else seems to fail -- a little Benadryl to quiet a colicky child or for a stuffy nose before getting on an airplane.

For Simmons, it had tragic consequences, authorities say. But that doesn't mean she intended to harm Aniya, said her attorney, Jeffrey Leukel.

"The state is saying she killed that child," he said. "That's just ludicrous."

Simmons told welfare workers Aniya and her twin sister, Janiya, had heart problems. She would not discuss what happened with the Sentinel.

But police and state welfare records indicate Simmons had long been suspected of failing to properly care for her children. Seven times, the state's child-abuse hotline received complaints about the family, state records show.

The calls began shortly after Simmons, at age 15, gave birth to her first child. By the time she was 21, she had had three more babies.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-locbaby10071005jul10,0,6623513.story?coll=orl-news-headlines
[/font]
 
A lab found she had been given too much of the cold and allergy medicine.

One hundred times too much, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

And the defense attorney says that this is an accident? Yeah, right!
 
From February 2007:

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-02-13/news/MOM13_1_erin-simmons-simmons-home-sanford

A young mother charged with giving a lethal dose of Dimetapp to her fussy 4-month-old daughter, intending only to quiet the child, pleaded no contest to felony child abuse and was sentenced to five years of probation...

Circuit Judge Marlene Alva, as part of Simmons' sentence, banned her from administering any medicine -- even over-the-counter drugs -- without written permission from a doctor. The judge also ordered her into a 15-week parenting class...

A year before Aniya was born, Simmons' 5-month-old son died. The Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office ruled that was a case of sudden infant death syndrome.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
87
Guests online
2,594
Total visitors
2,681

Forum statistics

Threads
590,009
Messages
17,928,905
Members
228,037
Latest member
shmoozie
Back
Top