"Newborn Jane" MUNOZ - xx Days - Seattle WA

A Seattle mother is behind bars following
allegations that she poisoned her infant daughter with methadone days
after giving birth to her.
According to charging documents, staff at Swedish Medical Center was
treating Josepha R. Munoz's newborn for a methadone addiction the girl
was born with on Feb. 18 when nurses at the Seattle hospital found the
child had stopped breathing. After reviving the girl, toxicologists
determined the child had been poisoned with methadone, a synthetic drug
used to treat heroin addiction.
Described to the court as a methadone and cocaine addict, Munoz had
been alone with the child shortly before the girl stopped breathing,
according to charging documents. Prosecutors claim Munoz -- for reasons
unexplained in charging documents -- slipped the infant methadone
during a visit.
Prior to giving birth to the girl, Munoz had told doctors at the
hospital that she had been using methadone and cocaine during her
pregnancy, Seattle Detective Kyle Kizzier told the court. Her daughter,
due to in utero exposure to the drugs, inherited her mother's
addiction.
Staff at the hospital worked to detoxify the child in the weeks
after her birth using morphine. That effort had succeeded by
mid-February, when the girl was weaned off the opium-derived
painkiller.
At the same time, hospital staff had been instructing Munoz on how to care for her child while she continued to use methadone.
At 4 p.m. the day of the alleged poisoning, Munoz was seen leaving
the child's room after feeding her from a bottle of formula, Kizzier
said in charging papers. She told the nurses she would be back in
several hours, and that the girl had eaten about half the bottle.
Less than 90 minutes later, nurses found the child breathing had
stopped and her heart rate was dangerously slow. Nurses and staff were
able to revive the girl, who was placed on a ventilator.
Investigators later determined that "acute opiate ingestion would
explain" the girl's sudden sickness. Removing Munoz's belongings from
her daughter's room, hospital staff found a bottle of methadone with
the woman's name on it.
Asking that Munoz be held on $250,000 bail, Senior Deputy Prosecutor
Erin Ehlert told the court that Munoz has a long-running problem with
drug abuse.
"The defendant has a history of drug abuse and was undergoing
methadone treatment at the time that methadone was provided into (the
girl's) system," Ehlert told to the court. "The defendant also has
seven other children, none of which currently reside with her."
Charged with first-degree assault of a child, Munoz remains jailed in the case.