Jonda Marie Whitt (West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation).
A woman in West Virginia awoke to find her baby dead or close to death — and she demanded that no one near her call 911 because crimes had been committed in the home, authorities say.
Jonda Marie Whitt, 35, is in the Southwestern Regional Jail and Correctional Facility on a $500,000 bond, jail records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
She has been charged with child neglect causing death and possession with intent to deliver, the Williamson Daily News reported.
On Saturday at about 2 a.m., 911 dispatchers in Mingo County, West Virginia, got a call from a man saying he had learned about an infant”s death. The man said his daughter overheard a call between Whitt and someone else in which Whitt said her 4-month-old daughter was dead.
The defendant, however, allegedly told the other person not to call emergency services because she had drugs and illegal substances inside the home.
But those drugs were, apparently, not just in the home — they were allegedly near the baby. According to a criminal complaint reviewed by the local newspaper, Whitt had “drugs concealed inside her bra and that was the area the baby was laying nearby.”
First responders arrived at the home in Mingo County, which is located in the southwestern part of West Virginia. As the child was being rushed to an area hospital, paramedics believed the baby was dead because of “the infant’s color of the skin being very pale” and “rigor mortis that was in the infant’s extremities,” the complaint stated, per regional NBC affiliate WSAZ.
Whitt reportedly told investigators that she had fallen asleep around 12:30 a.m. and woken up about 90 minutes later. She said she checked on her daughter, and though the child was warm, she was not moving.
Officers searched both the suspect and the home, and said they found a plastic baggie with a white powdery substance inside Whitt’s mouth. She allegedly admitted to using fentanyl before waking up to find her daughter unresponsive.
