The drug-addicted parents of a newborn Utah baby have been arrested and accused of feeding the one-day-old child pain medications to mask from doctors the fact that the baby was born already addicted to drugs.
The Utah County Sheriff’s Department arrested Lacey Dawn Christenson, 26, and Colby Glen Wilde, 29, after Wilde was involved in a robbery at a local Walmart, Fox 59 reported.
As police investigated the robbery, they discovered an even worse abuse when the couple later admitted under questioning that they rubbed the powder from crushed Suboxone pills onto the gums of their newborn baby so that its withdrawal symptoms would not be obvious to doctors and hospital staffers. The baby girl, born April 9, was birthed already addicted to opioids due to Christenson’s constant abuse of heroin and prescription pain medications during her pregnancy, doctors found:
The child abuse was discovered after Wilde was accused of trying to rob a Walmart in Spanish Fork, Utah, police said.
Wilde was seen on store surveillance video taking items from the store’s shelves, then trying to return them for cash as if he had bought them. The suspect had with him his 2-month-old daughter in a car seat, the video showed.
When confronted on the scene by Walmart employees, Wilde ran, dropping the car seat several times while trying to get away. When bystanders also tried to stop him outside the store, he handed the car seat containing the baby to a stranger in the Walmart parking lot and drove off, abandoning the child.
Police later found Wilde in a nearby parking lot, where they arrested him and charged him with a series of crimes including DUI, possessing heroin and meth, driving without insurance, and other charges.
Police discovered the couple already had three other children in their home, boys ages 8, 4, and 2. Another man fathered the oldest boy while the younger three were born to Christenson and Wilde.
During the widening investigation, the infant was taken to a hospital where it tested positive for methamphetamine, heroin, and morphine. Of the other three children, the two younger boys also tested positive for methamphetamine.
After her arrest, Christenson was charged with a long list of drug charges as well as four counts of child endangerment. She was then released on July 5, on a $7,500 bond.
However, after both Christenson and Wilde were released, police received tips that the couple went right back to buying and taking illegal drugs and both were re-arrested and charged with another series of drug charges.
The two are now being housed in jail on a cash-only bail of $10,000 each.
All four children were taken from the suspects and given to the father of the oldest boy who heroically told child welfare officers that he didn’t want to take his 8-year-old son from his siblings and break the children up.
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