LINCOLN COUNTY — A sheriff’s deputy rushed into a trailer home last summer north of Troy to find a newborn girl not breathing. The home, authorities said, was littered with drugs, the most potent of which were opioids.
“Fentanyl caplets and buttons were throughout the entire house,” said Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood. “It was everywhere.”
Police and medics tried to resuscitate the infant, 7-week-old Ty’Ann Paisley Curtner, but she was pronounced dead after arriving at a hospital. She likely had been dead from two to six hours before someone called 911, said county Coroner Dan Heavin.
Ty’Ann Paisley Curtner
Ty’Ann’s death Aug. 19 sparked a lengthy investigation that resulted in indictments announced this week against six adults.
The baby’s mother and father are charged with second-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death, as are the baby’s grandmother, uncle and two men who were the father’s roommates. The mother lived elsewhere, but the others all stayed in the home on Charlotte Drive where the baby died, Wood said Thursday.
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Ty’Ann had two broken ribs in various stages of healing, which Wood said indicated older wounds, and bleeding on the brain. Authorities initially were planning to prosecute for a shaken-baby death, but Wood said toxicology results came back last week that determined the death was due to an overdose of meth and fentanyl, Wood said.
The girl’s mother, Selena Rodriguez, had let the baby stay with the baby’s father, Gabriel Clark, for about seven days before the death, Wood said, but investigators contend the mother knew drugs were being used in the house. The parents are both 22 years old. The parents were also charged with child abuse.
Selena Rodriguez and Gabriel Clark
In addition to Rodriguez and Clark, prosecutors charged the grandmother, Shawna Walton, 44; the baby’s uncle Dillon Clark, 25; and two of the father’s roommates, Evan Hausermann, 43, and Adam Hausermann, 46.
Bond for each was set at $500,000 cash. The six adults were indicted Dec. 13.
Wood said investigators aren’t certain how the child got the drugs. Fentanyl was found in the baby’s gastric system, he said, “but you can also get fentanyl from just touch.”
He said medical experts advise that any amount of fentanyl can be fatal for a child that young.
Also charged in the drug overdose death of 7-week-old Ty'Ann Paisley Curtner are (from left to right): Ty'Ann's grandmother, Shawna Walton; uncle Dillon Clark; and two of the father's roommates, Adam Hausermann and Evan Hausermann.
The county’s child-fatality review panel examined the case to see if there were any preventable issues that authorities can address.
“The prevailing thought was, the fentanyl could have gotten into the formula, the fentanyl could have been on the pacifier. It could have been on the clothing,” Wood said. “Because fentanyl can come through the skin or it can be ingested.
“Ultimately, we know the parents exposed the child to the drugs, and the drugs killed the child,” Wood said.
A report by the Missouri Department of Social Services found that the number of fentanyl-related deaths of children under the age of 5 has gone up by over 500%.
“I was shocked,” Wood said of that report’s findings. “This is entirely preventable, and so we’re moving forward with a very strong stance against people using drugs in front of their children.”
Wood said police found a pill press in the home and suspect the residents were using meth, cutting it with fentanyl and repackaging it for distribution.
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