A Spanaway man pleaded guilty and was sentenced Friday in the death of his 2-year-old daughter, who overdosed on fentanyl pills that belonged to him.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Matthew Thomas sentenced 34-year-old Evan Hodge to 102 months in prison for first-degree manslaughter. This was 24 months longer than what prosecutors recommended.

Hodge told detectives he woke up at around 4:20 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2023, to find his daughter, Nanette Hodge, not breathing. He called the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department two minutes later. When deputies and paramedics arrived at his home, they pronounced the girl dead at the scene.

Detectives learned from the Pierce County medical examiner that the child consumed fentanyl pills, who said “the amount of pills was among the most she had seen in a child,” according to charging documents.

Hodge initially said he was clean for “a year or two” but later told detectives he smoked meth and heroin the night he picked up his daughter. He kept his drugs in his backpack. Contrary to what he told 911 dispatchers, Hodge told detectives he did not perform CPR on his daughter because he believed she was already dead, documents show.

Nanette Hodge’s mother, Lilliana Peden, and her stepfather were present at sentencing and wrote statements that were read aloud by a victim advocate.

“My daughter was only a few months away from her third birthday when her life was taken,” Peden’s statement said. “Her father, someone I should have been able to trust as much as myself to protect her, was secretly using fentanyl. He knew that if anyone found out, he’d lose time with her, so he kept it hidden from everyone. That secrecy ultimately cost her life.”

The statement said that like most children almost 3 years old, her daughter had a habit of putting random things in her mouth, which Hodge was aware of. She said Evan Hodge came to her apartment the day after their daughter’s death, sat with her family and grieved with them.

“I sat on my back porch with him and told him I still loved and cared for him like we were family, as I had always considered him family because of how important he was to my daughter. He was her favorite person,” Peden’s statement said.

Peden’s statement said that Evan Hodge did not just fail to protect their daughter but created the danger that took her away.

“No one in his family, nor I have any sympathy for him for losing his child. He made choices that led to this, and the consequences are entirely his to bear,” the statement said.

Prior to sentencing, the defense said that Hodge’s childhood trauma, along with physical and sexual abuse, drove him to addiction. His attorney, Gaurav Sharma, said that Hodge has taken responsibility for the actions that led to his daughter’s death. Sharma recommended a sentence of 44 months in prison.

Hodge read out loud his statement and said that he is not asking for forgiveness because he does not believe he deserves it.

“There are no words for me to prepare how sorry I am for the loss of my daughter,” he said. “There isn’t a night I don’t relive waking up and finding her over and over, which is something that will affect me for the rest of my life.”

Before imposing his sentence, Thomas said the case is particularity tragic because the victim was a small child.

“Someone once said that how we treat our children says a lot about who we are as a people,” Thomas said.

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