SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A San Francisco mother was high on fentanyl and displayed an “emotionless demeanor” when officers found her toddler dead at home, according to investigators. Michelle Price’s 2-year-old daughter had been dead for several hours before anyone called 911, prosecutors said.
A toxicology analysis of the toddler’s bloodstream revealed lethal levels of fentanyl, as well as an overdose-reversal drug known as Narcan.
On Wednesday, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced that her prosecutors filed second-degree murder charges against Price, 38, and her 43-year-old boyfriend, Steve Ramirez.
“This is the first murder case that the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has filed in connection to a fatal fentanyl overdose,” the DA’s office wrote.
Ramirez was high on fentanyl when he attempted to flee the crime scene on a bicycle, prosecutors said.
Jenkins told reporters at a news conference, “I want to be clear to parents who may be struggling with substance abuse disorder: We must protect the children. We cannot have environments where fentanyl is left available to young children, to any children, in our city.”
Just after 5 a.m. on February 12, emergency dispatchers received a 911 call from someone reporting that a child was not breathing inside an apartment at 3850 18th Street in the Mission district. Paramedics pronounced the toddler deceased.
Court documents state, “Michelle Price and Steve Ramirez were both present in the unit when the medics arrived. Price indicated that she was the resident of the unit. Ramirez said he did not live there, but told the paramedics ‘my daughter is not breathing.’”
“Ms. Price, the child’s mother, allegedly exhibited droopy eyes, slurred speech, and an emotionless demeanor and was detained. When officers arrived at the residence, Mr. Ramirez, identified as Ms. Price’s boyfriend, allegedly attempted to flee the scene on a bicycle. Officers pursued and detained him after he allegedly resisted arrest, causing injury to an officer,” the DA’s office wrote.
On a bed, officers saw a Narcan container, white powder fentanyl, and bottles of spoiled milk, investigators said.
Price told officers that her daughter was alive when she went to bed the previous night around 10 p.m., court documents state. When she was taken to the Mission Police Station for questioning about the toddler’s death, the mother told officers, “It is what it is,” court documents show.
Assistant District Attorney Nathan Quigley wrote in court documents, “Ramirez initially told officers that he was upset because his daughter just died, but then later minimized his statement, saying that his girlfriend’s daughter just died. Ramirez was (the toddler’s) biological father, had been in a relationship with Price for many years, and had full knowledge of her history of drug use.”
Investigators determined that Ramirez lived in the apartment, despite his claims.
“When the inspectors asked Ramirez what he would think had happened to (the toddler) based on the fact that they found a white rock near her body and an expended Narcan cartridge on the bed, Ramirez said that it sounds like she ‘OD’d,’” Quigley wrote.
An autopsy found no signs of physical trauma to the toddler, prosecutors said. The toddler’s cause of death was determined to be acute fentanyl toxicity.
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Drug tests revealed high levels of fentanyl and methamphetamine in the blood of both Price and Ramirez at the time they were arrested, according to Jenkin’s office. The father had abscesses in his legs consistent with infections from intravenous drug use.
Paramedics and officers who searched the apartment noted that the living space was “filthy and in extreme disarray, filled with stacks of all sorts of items. The unit was dark as many light bulbs did not function and there were soot marks on the ceiling throughout the apartment. Paramedics noted these factors were consistent with hoarding conditions,” court documents state.
This week, prosecutors charged the couple with second-degree murder, willfully causing harm or injury resulting in a child’s death, possession of fentanyl, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
“Price and Ramirez were raising their daughter together in unit 104, that they both had a long-standing history of using fentanyl, that they knew that fentanyl was dangerous to human life, and that they were aware that she had overdosed prior to the arrival of the paramedics,” Quigley wrote.
A judge ordered Price and Ramirez to return to court on Thursday at the San Francisco Hall of Justice to face the new charges.
