Couple Gave 5-Month-Old Daughter Baby Formula Mixed With Heroin
A Massachusetts couple who killed their 5-month-old daughter, Mya, by mixing heroin with her baby formula have both seen sentenced to prison, Fox News is reporting. The father, Ryan Barry, 33, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The mother, Ashley Cyr, 29, will spend eight years in prison. Both were convicted of manslaughter and reckless child endangerment.
Mya’s death was confirmed on September 23, 2011, when she was found unconscious in a two-bedroom apartment that Barry and Cyr lived in with their three children and four other people. Investigators described the apartment as “cluttered, filthy and containing bags of heroin and hypodermic needles.”
Three grams of heroin were found on a bedroom shelf where Mya and her sisters slept. According to a report, drug users came as they pleased to the apartment. An affidavit revealed that Cyr had even snorted powdered heroin from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book belonging to her oldest daughter.
Investigators revealed that little Mya slept in a bouncy bed, while her father slept on a thin mattress on the floor. Cyr and the other two children, aged 3 and 4 at the time, all shared a bed. Apparently, the state Department of Children and Families had banned Cyr from living with her children, but she flouted the ruling, hiding the children in a closet whenever social workers visited the house.
Mass. dad charged in baby's heroin death says mom snorted drugs off Dr. Seuss book: Ryan Barry and Ashley Cyr,… http://t.co/1fYHzpxrzh
— Western MA News (@WesternMAnews) October 12, 2013
Emergency respondents who were called to the Marshfield apartment found the little girl blue and not breathing. A baby formula bottle recovered from the cluttered apartment on the day Mya died tested positive for opiates. Responders said while Cyr’s grandmother and Barry were frantic over the condition of the little girl, her mother Ashley Cyr had remained outside on the porch, puffing on a cigarette.
The baby was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. A medical examiner later confirmed that the baby had died of opioid poisoning. Cyr and Barry pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and reckless child endangerment but changed it at their arraignment.
Ashley Cyr broke down in tears in the courtroom, admitting to all the facts presented by prosecutors, but she insisted that she had no idea that her husband was feeding Mya heroin. The judge, Jeffrey Locke, was not impressed with Cyr trying to insinuate that Barry was the one solely responsible for Mya’s death.
“It does appear to me there wasn’t any significant parenting taking place with these kids, because both you and Mr. Barry were so focused on fulfilling your own selfish needs to get high… that’s what it comes to in the end… you hid from the state the true risk these kids were facing.”
District Attorney Timothy Cruz said Mya “lived a short and horrible life” due to the way her parents lived their lives. He hoped the sentencing provided a form of justice for the 5-month-old girl.
According to the Patriot Ledger, Mya was born addicted to heroin because of her mother’s excessive use of the illegal drug but was eventually weaned off it. Barry had allegedly confessed to an inmate that he gave his three children heroin to “knock them out” because they drove him crazy. He added that Cyr was not aware of what he did on the day that Mya died, but she had been in the loop other times he had done it.
He later denied the statements.
Requiring an addict whose boyfriend killed her baby with heroin laced formula to take parenting classes? Really? https://t.co/xUvqfaa4nx
— Brooke (@brookiki) September 9, 2016
The 33-year-old later told prosecutors that he prepared baby formula 7:30 on the morning and that he might have mixed the formula powder with a container someone used to clean a drug syringe. Investigators found two baby bottles: one contained a liquid formula and the other bottle was empty. Traces of heroin were found in Mya’s blood, liver, and kidneys.
Both parents have a lengthy history of drug abuse.
Barry pleaded guilty to heroin possession in April of 2012 and a previous rape charge. Cyr had three warrants for a heroin possession charge. When Ashley Cyr is released from prison, she will serve five years of probation and go through a drug treatment program to ensure she remains drug-free.
She will also be required to complete a parenting program and undergo regular drug testing.
[Featured Image by itakdalee/iStock]
