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Washington Mom Accused Of Injecting Kids With Heroin, Kids Called It ‘Sleep Juice’

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 04:01 PST, Nov 1, 2016

A Washington state mother is accused of injecting her children with heroin, allegedly telling the kids that they were getting “sleeping juice” or “feel-good juice,” KIRO-TV (Seattle) is reporting.

Ashlee Hutt, 25, and her boyfriend Leroy McIver, 25, first came to the attention of child welfare authorities back in May of 2015, when an anonymous tipster complained that he or she witnessed Hutt and McIver injecting the children, ages 6, 4, and 2, with a “dangerous drug.”

Child Protective Services investigated the family for the next six months, according to Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Detective Ed Troyer. During that time, the kids made some alarming statements to investigators.

“Some of the statements they [the children] made were very disturbing about how they would get sleeping juice to go to sleep and it was injected into them by needle.”

On November 15, 2015, according to the News Tribune, authorities removed the children from the care of their parents. Authorities investigating the home found heroin and needles, as well as a squalid house filled with rat droppings. According to an affidavit, the 6-year-old told investigators that his mom and dad gave him “feel good medicine.” He said his parents would mix a white powder with water and use a needle to inject it into him and his sisters. On one occasion, the 6-year-old told investigators that McIver choked him and then injected him with the “sleep juice.”

When the children were taken for drug testing, two of the kids had trace levels of heroin, but the levels were so small that they were considered negative. The third child showed no traces of heroin in his or her system. However, all three kids had puncture wounds and bruising consistent with heroin injection.

The kids were taken away from the parents and placed into foster care, where they are reportedly “doing well.”

McIver and Hutt were both arrested and charged with three counts each of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance to a minor, second-degree criminal mistreatment, and second-degree child assault. Both are currently in jail in lieu of $100,000 bond.

Neighbor Donald Tiedt says he saw police coming and going from the home on a regular basis, but he had no idea just how bad things were.

“Whoah, I didn’t know that was going on over there. There’s just been so many reports. It’s hard to keep track of everything.”

Unfortunately, Hutt and McIver are not the first parents to have allegedly injected their children with heroin.

Back in February of 2012, according to WBNS-TV (Columbus), Shantel A. Parker was arrested after investigators determined that she had been giving her teenage children heroin for several months. Authorities say that she shot them up with heroin each day before school — as it turns out, the kids had gotten addicted to heroin after she initially gave it to them to treat them for toothache pain, according to Hocking County Sheriff Lanny North.

“I guess (she) got the kids addicted to the heroin, as well. It coincides with what the kids had told the detectives. Not in my 36 years, I haven’t heard that.”

In a similar story from 2015, according to WBAU (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania woman Jessica Riffey was arrested for allegedly injecting her 14-year-old daughter, and the daughter’s 16-year-old male friend, with heroin. The boy told authorities that Riffey would tie a sweatshirt around their arms to cause their veins to enlarge and would then inject them with the drug.

[Featured Image by TM_SALE/Shutterstock]

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