A 38-year-old Vancouver mom was arrested and charged this week with the first-degree manslaughter of her 21-month-old daughter, after a months-long investigation found the girl died of a fentanyl overdose earlier this year.
Katherine Marie Richards made her first court appearance Wednesday, pleaded not guilty and remains in Clark County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. Police say Richards had reported that she found her toddler unresponsive in her crib on March 26 while her husband was away at work, but didn’t tell first responders or police that she thought the girl’s death had anything to do with drugs.
A few weeks later, toxicology tests came back positive for fentanyl and naloxone, the medication commonly known as Narcan and that is used to try to reverse drug overdoses. And when confronted with this evidence, police say Richards admitted she’d given her daughter two doses of Narcan, but she said she thought she told paramedics, court records show.
Richards also told police she had never done fentanyl before her daughter died, though she admitted to using it after the girl’s death, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by the prosecution.
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Laurel Smith asked Judge Suzan Clark to keep Richards in jail with no possibility of posting bail because investigators believe she is at risk of suicide. Smith also pointed to the affidavit, which states Richard’s brother told police he thought she was likely to flee the state and that Richards’ biological mother had sent her a one-way plane ticket to Iowa to stay with her.
The arrest comes at a time when drug overdoses — specifically fentanyl overdoses — by children are rapidly increasing. In summer 2023, the Portland Police Bureau said nine children in the city overdosed on fentanyl and five of them died. In February, a Hillsboro man was sentenced to four years in prison after his 2-year-old overdosed but survived after eating fentanyl pills in the car he was driving.
In May, a 27-year-old Vancouver mom was charged with endangerment, criminal mistreatment and other crimes after her 3-year-old overdosed on methamphetamine but survived. Her case is still pending.
According to Vancouver police, Richards called 911 on March 26, saying that at about 8:30 p.m. she found her daughter unresponsive in her crib while the girl’s father was away at work as an evening security guard.
By 9:07 p.m., emergency responders pronounced the toddler dead, with no sign of visible injuries.
Police said the house was “cluttered and unkempt,” with garbage, moldy food and “limited free space on the floors.” They said they found drug paraphernalia and a “clear crystal rock” of methamphetamine on a mirror in the basement, where a friend was staying for the past several days.
Richards told police her daughter never went to that area of the house.
Test results that came back a few weeks later showed the girl tested positive for fentanyl and naloxone.
“This was concerning as naloxone was not administered by any first responders,” the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, when police told Richards that her daughter had overdosed on fentanyl, she responded “I’m f—--- careless.”
The affidavit also states that Richards laid blame on her friend, saying that she’d seen her smoking something earlier, so when she found her daughter unresponsive she administered two doses of Narcan.
The friend told police that on the day the toddler was found dead, she heard Richards “freaking out” from her daughter’s bedroom and Richards asked the friend to get Narcan. The friend said she was surprised by the request because she didn’t think the girl could be overdosing, according to the affidavit.
Police said the friend told them she’d used fentanyl with Richards in the past. The friend said she kept drugs in the basement in a box and that the toddler hadn’t been down there.
Neither the friend nor Richards’ husband have been charged with any crimes in relation to the girl’s death.
Katherine Richards’ husband filed for divorce in July. The affidavit states that in August she sent her brother a text message “indicating that she planned on disappearing to have a normal life again.”
Police arrested Katherine Richards on Tuesday. After being arraigned Wednesday, the judge set her next court date for Oct. 17.
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