By Theodore Decker
The Columbus Dispatch
REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio — A Reynoldsburg woman took her 14-month-old daughter to a Hilltop drug house in May and the child ingested a lethal dose of heroin and fentanyl, Columbus police say.
Three months after the death of Annabella Sagstetter, police have charged Erica M. Barley, 31, of the 200 block of Castle Court, with involuntary manslaughter and endangering children in the death of her child. Barley turned herself in at the Franklin County jail on Thursday, police say.
Police learned of Annabella’s death on May 27 when Columbus Fire Division paramedics responded to the 100 block of Columbian Avenue. One of several adults in a car called 911 to report that a baby girl with them was not breathing.
Annabella was the daughter of Barley and Chris Sagstetter.
In court documents, police said that Barley took her daughter into a known drug house on Columbian Avenue to buy drugs. Annabella ingested the narcotics while inside the house, although police did not elaborate on how that occurred.
Annabella was the second Columbus child to die of a heroin overdose in May.
Dominic Dickinson, 11 months old, died on May 13 at his father’s home on the East Side. Paramedics were called there by an adult who reported that Dominic wasn’t breathing and had turned purple.
Sgt. David Sicilian, supervisor of the first-shift homicide squad, said police found Dominic in a playpen surrounded by blankets. Authorities initially thought the child might have died of SIDS, but acute heroin intoxication was discovered after an autopsy.
No charges have been filed yet in connection with Dominic’s death, but Sicilian said on Thursday that detectives have forwarded the case to prosecutors for review and possible charges.
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