Mom arrested, child dead after ingesting suspected fentanyl
A child died Tuesday, and the mother was arrested after police suspected the boy ingested a fentanyl-laced pill.
Amber Mitchell was arrested and booked on three counts of child abuse and one count of possession with intent to sell drugs, according to jail records.
Officers were initially called to The Orleans, 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday after a child was found unresponsive in a hotel room, according to an arrest report from the Metropolitan Police Department released Thursday.
The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mitchell told police she had gone downstairs to play poker after her sons went to sleep, and when she went to check on them at 1 a.m., her youngest son seemed drowsy. She told police she suspected he took one of the pills she left on the counter.
Two hours later, she went to check on the boys, and her youngest son had blood coming from his mouth.
The Clark County coroner’s office identified the boy as 4-year-old Sequori Cayetano. His cause and manner of death were still pending Thursday.
Mitchell told police a man came to her room earlier in the night and laid out pills for her to take a picture of and potentially sell. She told police she left them on the counter after she left the room.
The pills tested positive for fentanyl, detectives wrote in the arrest report.
“There has been a national campaign to bring awareness to the fact that these counterfeit pills are likely to contain fentanyl and one single pill could kill you the first time you take it,” detectives wrote. “It is likely Mitchell would have been aware of this as it was obvious the pills she was selling were not from a pharmacy.”
Mitchell told police that she was a professional poker player for a decade and was now bouncing from hotels to friends’ homes while playing poker at night to earn money.
“I didn’t know oxy could kill him, I don’t know about fentanyl,” she told police in the arrest report.
She is being held on $200,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court again Monday.
Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.
