Sara Lashae Harris (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office)
A 24-year-old mother in Arizona was arrested last week in connection with the death of her newborn daughter, who died after allegedly being plied full of NyQuil and left home unattended for an entire weekend.
Sara Lashae Harris was taken into custody on Friday and charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of felony child abuse, authorities confirmed to Law&Crime.
According to court documents obtained by Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO, officers with the Phoenix Police Department and emergency medical personnel with the Phoenix Fire Department responded to an apartment complex near 19th Avenue and Mountain View Road at about 9:40 a.m. on July 30, 2023, in regards to a newborn baby girl being found unresponsive.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders found the child in the living room lying on a mattress and not breathing. Lifesaving measures were attempted, but the baby was pronounced dead about four minutes later, the station reported. A toddler in the home was found unharmed.
Harris was at the scene and told police that her daughter had been acting “fussy” before she put the 6-week-old to bed the previous evening, per a probable cause affidavit obtained by Phoenix Fox affiliate KSAZ.
“(Harris) informed investigators that her infant was fussy the night prior. She last fed the baby at (10:30 p.m.),” the affidavit reportedly states. “(Harris) said she gave her infant ibuprofen with a syringe at approximately (5:00 p.m.) on July 29, 2023. She carried the baby around the apartment until they laid down to sleep at (2:30 a.m.).”
Harris allegedly claimed that she awoke that morning, July 30, and went out briefly to the corner market. When she came back about an hour later, she had to have someone let her in the building because she’d forgotten to take her keys with her. Upon entering the child’s room, she reportedly found her daughter with a blanket over her face and not breathing. She then called her parents, who called 911.
Investigators at the scene reportedly noted that the victim’s head appeared sunken and her body temperature was far colder than the temperature of the room, indicating she’d been dead for some time, KPHO reported.
Authorities obtained surveillance footage that allegedly contradicted Harris’ story about being at her apartment the previous night. It showed that she had left the apartment Friday evening and only returned for the first time on Sunday morning.
A search of the apartment also allegedly revealed more inculpatory evidence.
“Investigators located a bottle of Children’s NyQuil for 6 years and older, red in color, and a syringe with red liquid remnants that appeared the same color as the NyQuil in the kitchen on top of the microwave,” police reportedly wrote in the affidavit. “Investigators also located a shopping bag in the trash can, which was similar to the one (Harris) was carrying in the surveillance footage entering the apartment. Also, in the trash can, investigators located a baby bottle filled with what appeared to be white milk, that had a pinkish hue to it and red liquid in the nipple of the bottle.”
An autopsy determined that the infant’s cause of death was “Chlorpheniramine intoxication, and unsafe sleep environment,” KSAZ reported. Chlorpheniramine is an antihistamine found in medications such as NyQuil Cold & Flu.
In a post-Miranda interview with police on Jan. 5, Harris reportedly “admitted to leaving her six-week-old infant and 17-month-old toddler home alone on Friday night, July 28, 2023, and not returning until Sunday morning, July 30, 2023.” Authorities said she left the children unattended for about 37 hours.
She further confessed to “administering NyQuil and melatonin to the infant victim via bottle prior to leaving them unattended for 37 hours,” going to a nightclub in Tempe, Arizona, and “taking illicit street drugs, drinking alcohol during the timeframe she left the infant victim and child victim at home unattended.”
Harris is currently scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.
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