Days after mom, Wichita dad also sentenced for baby son’s fentanyl death on Halloween

Days after a Wichita mother was sent to prison over her infant son’s fentanyl poisoning last Halloween, the baby’s father has also been sentenced. Prosecutors say he was in a car with the baby, dealing drugs, when the boy was fatally exposed.

Brijin M. McCullough will spend 36 1/2 years in prison on a bevy of charges in four cases, all involving drugs to some degree. He was sentenced for second-degree reckless murder and other charges on Friday, two days after Sedgwick County District Judge Jeffrey Goering ordered 1-year-old Kaiden McCullough ’s mom, Wilma Faye Presley, to serve 20 years. The two cases she was sentenced on Wednesday also both involved drugs.

Prosecutors say McCullough, 32, had a history of dealing and possessing drugs that continued even after his son died, including making several phone calls from jail after his arrest where he arranged with Presley, 36, to continue his drug business. Both were charged in separate cases for that conspiracy.

Kaiden turned 1 just two weeks before he died last Halloween after being exposed to fentanyl . His family noticed he was lifeless and his lips had turned blue around 10 p.m. during a Walmart shopping trip for more candy after the baby’s siblings went trick-or-treating. The baby was taken by ambulance from the store, 501 E. Pawnee, to a Wichita hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His autopsy report says he died from lethal levels of fentanyl.

His parents arrived at the store in separate vehicles that night and told authorities they thought the baby was just sleeping. Before going to the store, Kaiden rode in his father’s car. Presley told police she saw McCullough “conducting a drug transaction” at a QuikTrip sometime before the Walmart trip.

Defense lawyer Randall J. Price said Friday that exactly where the fentanyl came from and how it got there was the subject of debate. In asking for a more lenient sentence than prosecutors were recommending, he described McCullough as the product of a broken home who first got into legal trouble as a teenager. Although he had made some positive progress, including graduating from high school and spending a semester in college, he took wrong turns — something he has since accepted responsibility for, Price said.

He asked Goering to give McCullough a sentence comparable to the 20 years Presley received.

Both McCullough and Presley pleaded guilty in their respective cases in July.

Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Alice Osburn asked the judge to forgo any more lenient sentence than prosecutors recommended in McCullough’s plea agreement because he had already received a “significant reduction” in possible punishment when some of his charges were amended or dropped in exchange for him admitting guilt to others. Originally, both he and Presley were charged in Kaiden’s death with first-degree felony murder, which carries a life sentence.

Osburn also pointed out that McCullough committed more crimes when he continued facilitating drug sales from the jail. McCullough was also on parole at the time of his son’s death, The Eagle previously reported.

“It just demonstrates that this defendant is a danger to the community,” Osburn argued in court Friday.

When it was his turn to address the court, McCullough acknowledged that his actions “have not been the best.” He said he took responsibility and had spent his life helping others, adding that “things happen.” He made no clear mention of his son in his brief speech.

No one from the courtroom gallery spoke on behalf of the deceased child. The same happened at Presley’s sentencing Wednesday, although she did speak of making mistakes and her love for her son , saying “part of me is missing” since his death.

In pronouncing McCullough’s sentence, Goering said he saw no substantial and compelling reasons to deviate from the presumptive prison term and denied the defense’s request for leniency. Presley, he said, received a lesser sentence because she had a different criminal history, which usually factors into a defendant’s possible punishment in criminal cases.

Presley was also convicted of different crimes: one count of distribution of a controlled substance causing death and one count of aggravated endangering a child in connection with Kaiden’s death, and one count of using a communication facility for drug sales and several charges for possessing and conspiring to distribute marijuana, methamphetamine and a controlled substance stemming from the case tied to the jail phone calls.

McCullough, by contrast, was convicted of the more serious second-degree unintentional but reckless murder charge and three misdemeanor counts of endangering a child in his son’s death. He was also convicted in three other cases of various charges, including possessing opiates and cocaine, illegally possessing a weapon, fleeing or eluding law enforcement officers, using the jail phones to arrange drug transactions and conspiring to distribute meth and controlled substances.

Although each crime has its own punishment, all of the sentences McCullough received Friday will be served concurrently, or simultaneously. That means he won’t serve more than 36 1/2 years — the length of his murder sentence — for all of the cases combined.

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