Docs: Child with cocaine in system dead after co-sleeping, neglect charges filed against parents

RICHMOND, Ind. — Two parents have been charged with neglect after their infant daughter died while co-sleeping with her mother in an apartment filled with trash and feces.

The infant was also found to have cocaine in her system, investigators said.

According to court documents, filed on Monday in Wayne County, 23-year-old Kira McKee and 29-year-old Nathaniel Ray were both charged with one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a Level 1 felony.

Court documents state that arrest warrants have been issued for both McKee and Ray and bail has been set in the amount of $50,000.

On Feb. 22, detectives with the Richmond Police Department began their investigation into the death of a 3-month-old child. According to court documents, officials spoke with the infant’s father, later identified as Ray, at the hospital while the child’s mother, later identified as McKee, stayed with law enforcement at their apartment.

While at the apartment, McKee reportedly reenacted how the child was sleeping on the couch with her. During the investigation, officials issued field drug test kits for both McKee and Ray after they stated that they had smoked marijuana in the past, had done cocaine at a party the previous weekend and had taken OxyContin the night before the incident.

Detectives with the department also searched the apartment with the parents’ permission. The documents said that the yard was filled with bikes, ladders, tires and miscellaneous trash.

Officials said the apartment was “cluttered with tools, parts, trash and filth, which left little room to move around,” including a 12-inch Bowie knife with the handle sticking out above the TV, a BB gun in the living room, two partially hand-rolled cigarettes that reportedly contained marijuana on the coffee table and a live extension cord in the bathroom.

“There were large piles of dog feces in some rooms,” the documents read. “…The apartment itself appeared to be one of the most unkempt and dangerous that (the detective had) seen in (his) 27 years in law enforcement.”

In an interview, McKee reportedly told officers the child woke her up crying around 4 a.m. McKee changed the infant’s diaper, gave her a pacifier and laid the baby on her chest, face down.

When McKee woke up, she reportedly told police that the child was lying on her right side and was not moving. After attempts at CPR, the child was pronounced dead at a local emergency room.

In an interview, Ray told police that they knew the dangers of co-sleeping, stating they were instructed “to avoid it” by the hospital in Indianapolis where McKee had given birth.

In the coroner’s report, officials said the infant had died from “positional asphyxia with contributing factors of cocaine exposure and respiratory viral illness.” Officials said there was a presence of benzoylechonine (cocaine metabolite) in the child’s blood.

The parents were “adamant” that the child had not been exposed to cocaine. However, McKee said that the infant could have been exposed to cocaine from her shirt.

“(McKee) did not remember whether she was wearing the same shirt she wore the night of the party (where they did cocaine),” the documents said.

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