Baby girl dies of fentanyl overdose as warnings over drug abuser dad overruled

06 November 2023 , 10:09

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Three-month-old Phoenix was poisoned by drugs at her father's home (Image: NBC)

A baby given back to her drug-abusing dad died from a drugs overdose after lawmakers overturned a social workers' decision to take her into care.

Officials in Santa Clara County, California had changed the rules around child removals just days before newborn baby Phoenix died from a fentanyl overdose. By the time of the child's birth, the county was under investigation after worried social workers raised the alarm about 'progressive' lawyers overriding child welfare decisions.

And in the wake of the death, county executive James Williams, who was lead counsel until July admitted on Saturday that "the county dropped the ball". He said: "My opinion is that baby Phoenix shouldn't have been in the care of the father – period." He also confessed that the county had botched its assessment of dad David Castro's fitness to look after Phoenix, but refused to say if counsel had overruled social workers in the case.

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Dad David Castro (San Jose Police)

He added: "There's extraordinary passion, I think on all sides. What are the best things to do to take care of children and their families? We want to improve, we want to learn, we are deeply troubled. There's nobody I've talked to who isn't incredibly affected by the death of a three-month-old baby."

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The tiny child was too young to eat solid food when her body was found in an "apartment littered with opioids" in May, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. An autopsy report showed the infant died of a fentanyl overdose – poisoned by the drugs that were alongside her bottle at the San Jose home of Castro, 38, despite repeated warnings from neighbours.

Older children had previously been removed from Castro, who had eight earlier drug convictions, but Santa Clara County had recently changed its 'threshold' for removal, citing a commitment to 'racial justice'. "There's no reason why this baby had to die," neighbour Nancy Wetherington told Mercury News. "CPS or police or someone should have stepped in and taken this baby. How did this baby skate through, a beautiful baby girl? The baby should be alive."

Mother Emily De La Cerda was in rehab when her baby was poisoned and died from an overdose three months after her child (dignitymemorial.com)

Family member Edward Morillo told NBC: "Somebody dropped the ball and they need to pick up the tab for it, whether it was social services. Someone has to be held accountable because we did our damn best to keep Emily sober."

Police who found Phoenix unconscious also found fentanyl, broken glass pipes and aluminium foil next to her bottle in the kitchen of the home on Spinnaker Way. Castro was charged with felony child neglect and possession of a controlled substance. His case is still pending.

Neighbour Sandra Mack, who had also warned authorities about Castro, said: "He was open with me about it. He let me know he was addicted to fentanyl and he's been doing it for a long time. If you can't take care of one child properly, how can you take care of any properly? I just thought that was absurd."

The horror story comes after lawmakers boasted about their success in slashing child removals. Officials insisted they were unaware of "a single example where a child was determined to be 'unsafe', and subsequently left in the care of the offending parent." Two weeks later, Phoenix was dead.

Castro had met the child's mother, Emily De La Cerda, 39, at an addicts' recovery organisation. She was in drug treatment after suffering withdrawal during birth at the time of Phoenix's death and was dead three months after her child, also from a fentanyl overdose.

Family member David Morillo spoke to reporters outside (NBC)

The number of children removed from their families had dropped from more than 60 in August 2020 to fewer than 20 in February 2022 as the new philosophy was put in place in Santa Clara.

By the time of Phoenix's birth, the county was involved in a probe after fearful social workers sounded the alarm about progressive lawyers overriding child welfare decisions. State social services demanded answers after county whistleblowers highlighted multiple cases of children removed by law enforcement and then quickly returned.

Those children would be "immediately placed back in the care of the unsafe parent" by the county's Department of Family and Children's Services after intervention by the county counsel's office, it was claimed.

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Steve Baron, who worked on hundreds of child abuse and neglect cases in the county, called the findings a "scandal". He told the East Bay Times: "It seems like the county counsel is making decisions that really relate to the safety of the child. And they're not qualified to do that. That's not their role."

The house where the baby died (NBC)

The county claimed its change of approach was "based on increasingly clear evidence demonstrating the significant and lasting trauma children experience with even brief periods of removal from their family".

Dan Little, the director of the county's DFCS, had told his social workers in 2021 they were now expected to show commitment "to racial justice and to healing the historical wounds underlying disproportionate representation of children of colour in the child welfare system".

Baron, a member of the Santa Clara County Child Abuse Prevention Council, said keeping families together is an "idealistic goal", but social service agencies are "rolling the dice on the safety of the child".

Paul Donald