A little girl nearly overdosed in her classroom last week and now, her parents are facing the prospect of years behind bars for child neglect.
Courtney Marie Delaney and Joshua Lee Sanders have each been charged in Florida with one count of child neglect resulting in great bodily harm and two counts of neglect without great bodily harm, according to court documents shared with Us Weekly.
The girl, who is the daughter of Delaney, 34, and Sanders, 40, brought fentanyl to school after finding it in a bathroom at home.
The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office received a call just before 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday, March 10, about an unresponsive child at L.A. Ainger Middle School in Englewood.
First responders arrived to find the school nurse performing CPR on the girl, who was splayed out on the floor.
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One of the deputies reportedly administered a single dose of nasal Narcan to the girl, and she started to respond.
The girl was raced to a local hospital for further treatment.
While still at the school, the young victim allegedly told a first responder she watched her father consume narcotics and was “curious about it.”
“[The victim] also stated that she located an essential oil bottle containing a white powder. [She] took the bottle to school and consumed the powder in the bathroom near her classroom. A short time later, she started to feel funny,” reads an arrest affidavit. “It should be noted that students informed school staff that they had been informed by [the victim] that she snorted a white powder off the toilet paper holder in the bathroom stall and had walked out of the bathroom with a white powder on her nose.”
The girl’s age was not provided.
Police found the bottle of fentanyl in the girl’s backpack. An on-the-spot drug test confirmed it was fentanyl.
Delaney was called by police about her daughter’s overdose and said she had just “got into an argument” with Sanders, the father, “over some missing fentanyl” and “kicked [him] out of the bedroom.”
Delaney also told police she had suspected Sanders had been using narcotics.
“[Delaney] said that she would throw the narcotics away and not say anything to [Sanders] about it. [She] knew Joshua to be a narcotics user and stated that his drug of choice was fentanyl,” the affidavit says. “[Delaney] then went on to say that after throwing away what she believed to be narcotics, she would act as if she had no idea what happened to them when [Sanders] brought up the missing narcotics.”
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Ultimately, tossing the fentanyl wasn’t enough, and investigators determined Delaney made “no effort” to remove Sanders from the home to keep her children safe.
The victim later told police her father uses the same bathroom as her and her siblings and that she had grabbed a bottle marked “FENT,” which she knew contained her father’s stash. She added that he “regularly” left narcotics “within reach of all three children in the residence.”
The victim told police that she meant to give the bottle to her mom to discard but forgot and ended up bringing it to school. She admitted consuming some of the drug and needed help getting to class from her best friend.
Sanders allegedly admitted to knowingly leaving the narcotics where his daughter could access the bottle and asked police to inform that child that he was sorry.
“First and most importantly, I am glad to hear that the student will make a full recovery,” Sheriff Bill Prummell said in a statement. “This could have ended very, very differently if not for the fast actions taken by the school nurse and other staff, as well as my deputies. It is inexcusable and unforgivable that this child was able to access this poison so easily, and that’s why these arrests were made. I thank God that we were able to intervene before something even worse happened.”
Delaney was released after posting a bond of $25,000. Sanders remained in custody on bond of $450,000 as of Monday afternoon, records show.
The couple are due to appear in court for their arraignments on April 20.
