A Pennsylvania mother is facing murder charges for suffocating her six-day-old baby while high on drugs.
The disturbing incident took place on May 26th, 2021. Emergency personnel responded to a home in Guilford Township, where they found 30-year-old Destinee Rae Griffin-Bailey and her newborn son, Xander Ray Reed. The baby was unresponsive, and life-saving measures were performed, but the infant was pronounced dead at 1:49 p.m. An eventual autopsy confirmed that Reed died from positional asphyxiation.
The woman admitted to police that she had consumed a drug called “scramble,” which is a mixture of fentanyl and heroin, before she began feeding the baby in her lap. While giving him the bottle, Griffin-Bailey says she “slumped over.” She later woke up and found the infant unresponsive with the bottle still in his mouth. Fentanyl and other illicit substances were confirmed in her blood. Hospital staff had previously told Griffin-Bailey that using drugs while caring for her child would greatly affect her “cognitive abilities and decision making.”
Griffin-Bailey was initially charged with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. On Monday, she was charged with homicide. Griffin-Bailey is currently being held in Franklin County Jail on $150,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 12th.
