Mendocino County Mother Convicted of Killing Newborn Via Meth in Her Breastmilk
This is a press release from the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office:
Defendant Heather Allison Marsh-Haas, age 31, generally of the Willits and Potter Valley areas, was convicted by plea [yesterday] of killing her newborn daughter in December 2020.
Marsh-Haas entered a guilty plea Tuesday afternoon to Voluntary Manslaughter, a felony. To resolve her case, the defendant was also required to stipulate to the presumptive state prison sentence of 72 months.
A form of unlawful homicide, voluntary manslaughter requires the same lethal intent as murder. However, the culpability of the offender is deemed reduced or “mitigated” under the law by other negating factors.
Pursuant to the California Penal Code, voluntary manslaughter is also one of only twenty-two felonies characterized as violent by California law so any work or good time credits the defendant may attempt to earn towards her early release from state prison to parole supervision shall be limited to no more than 15% of the total sentence to be imposed.
This conviction also constitutes a future Strike under California’s voter-modified Three Strikes law.As background, Mendocino County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the emergency department at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley last December following unsuccessful attempts by medical staff to resuscitate a 30-day old newborn who had been brought to the hospital.
As part of their efforts to try and save the child, hospital medical staff obtained a blood sample from the child’s mother to analyze to look for clues. Subsequent toxicology tests of that sample revealed the presence of methamphetamine in the defendant’s drawn blood.
The deceased was later forensically examined by the county’s pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, in an effort to attempt to determine a cause of death. With the help of toxicology tests, Dr. Omalu conclusively determined that the little girl died as a result of methamphetamine toxicity.
The joint law enforcement and medical investigations determined that the lethal source of the child’s methamphetamine was from the mother having recently ingested drugs that she then passed through to the child in her breast milk.
The local law enforcement agency that developed the evidence to convict defendant Marsh-Haas was the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
The attorney who worked with the investigators, charged the defendant, and will continue to handle this case through formal sentencing is Assistant District Attorney Dale P. Trigg.
Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Carly Dolan accepted the defendant’s guilty plea Tuesday afternoon and will impose the stipulated prison sentence at a sentencing hearing that has been set for October 8, 2021 at 9 o’clock in the morning in Department H in the Ukiah courthouse.Any person interested in this defendant or this case is welcome to attend the October 8th sentencing hearing. Come prepared – masks are still required in and about the courthouse.
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The “Joys” of Meth Addiction!!!
So they sentenced her to 72 months of jail.
How many months of psychotherapy? How many months of drug rehabilitation?
Good lord, that is sad.
So a child with a potential life expectancy of 70 years gets to live one month and the animal who killed this child gets 72 months incarceration? Should be the death penalty.
Read the book… ”In the realm of Hungry Ghosts.. By Gabor Mate… childhood trauma.
Thanks Geoff for having a heart.
And what is going to stop her from potentially giving birth to another child to meet a similar fate? Come on Texas, rather than abort an unplanned/unwanted pregnancy let’s have them give birth AND then kill them!
So sorry for all the parties involved. I know everybody here will tear the mom up–but I feel a lot of sympathy for her. It’s not easy being a *sober* parent.
Maybe not. But bottle feeding is not all that hard with plenty of sources for funding of that.
Especially when you factor in the amount of government assistance was being collected by her and her baby’s father and being in no way contributed to where it should have been but instead traded straight across the board for the cash for the dope.
Just a nitpick, but if she was convicted there is no need for the disclaimer at the top.
Thanks for pointing that out. I grabbed the wrong template for that post. I’ve fixed it now.
The ‘fairness’ of the sentence all depends on her degree of genuine remorse, her self-awareness and drive to get/stay sober. She should be monitored and given the opportunity to turn her life around. With any conscience, she has a life sentence from negligently killing her baby!
She has none.
6 years for murdering a baby. California is really fucked up.
I can’t believe the judge ruled voluntary manslaughter, as if she was breastfeeding her baby with the intent to kill it while on meth, this is so heartbreaking in so many ways 😭😭 Sending prayers for this woman, I hope she gets the help she needs to work through her pain and heal herself and forgive herself. Bless that little babe up in heaven too.
that’s the choice she made when she did the line or smoked it…. She is an adult mother who knew better…
No sympathy from me….
Just chalk it up to post birth abortion. It’s OK when they kill babies, on purpose, but it’s manslaughter when you do it on accident.
Hmmmm
She shot it.
[…] California woman was convicted of killing her newborn baby girl who authorities say died after overdosing on meth that was ingested through her mother’s breast […]