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Woman pleads innocent to charges she killed her son through drug use
Friday May 16, 2003RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) A woman accused of killing her 3-month-old son with methamphetamine-tainted breast milk pleaded innocent to murder and three felony child endangerment charges.
Prosecutors refiled charges against Amy Leanne Prien, 31, of Mead Valley last month after a judge initially dismissed the case because the prosecution sought to delay it to interview a defense witness.
Prien's son, Jacob Wesley Smith, died in January 2002 of what the Riverside County coroner originally labeled sudden infant death syndrome. A month later, a toxicology report showed that the boy had overdosed on methamphetamine.
Supervising Deputy District Attorney Allison Nelson alleged that, in addition to being a meth user while breastfeeding her son, Prien neglected the child and stored the drug in plastic baby-bottle liners.
``I don't know how the baby was fed methamphetamine, but he had it in his system when he died,'' Nelson said Thursday after the court hearing.
The allegation of tainted breast milk ``is not an element of the crime that's required for me to prove to convict her of murder. Whatever method was used to feed methamphetamine to Jacob, it was Amy Prien's responsibility, legally and morally, to ensure that that didn't happen.''
Trial is set for June 23.
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