The parents of a 3-year-old toddler are facing jail time after the little girl died in their home from a drug overdose. Police have uncovered the events that led to this incident.
Brian P. Bennett and Brittany N. Higgins neglected their daughter while they got high on meth. According to Meaww, Logan Starliper died on January 6, 2018.
Logan Starliper, 3, was found dead earlier this year at her home in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. She is supposedly one of the youngest ever victims of an illegal drug overdose in the state in recent history.
Starliper is also the youngest ever victim of an illegal drug overdose in Franklin County. The little girl was found dead in her bedroom and a subsequent toxicology report stated that she died from multiple drug toxicity.
They found that she had methamphetamine and buprenorphine in her body. Buprenorphine is commonly sold under the brand name Subutex and is an opioid used to treat opioid addiction, acute pain, and chronic pain.
Police revealed that Starliper got access to the drugs because her two parents, Brian P. Bennett, 29, and Brittany N. Higgins, 29, were meth addicts. They regularly used the drugs in front of their two children.
During a search of their top floor apartment at 43 West Baltimore Street, three pipes were recovered by the authorities. The pipes had burned residue thought to be meth.
Court records show that Higgins admitted to the police that she had injected meth in the two days before her daughter’s death. But she claimed that she had kept the meth in a bag on a top shelf so her children could not reach them.
Bennett said that he had kept his Subutex on a stand next to his bed, adding that he kept the meth on his being. An investigation revealed that the couple had not checked on the toddler in the 22 hours leading up to her death.
They failed to check on her because they were injecting meth in their room. Bennett claimed that he had seen Starliper through a crack in her door at 10 am on January 6 and thought she was sleeping.
But when Higgins later checked upon her daughter at 9 pm, she found the toddler to be unresponsive. The mother called the police to report the death and police found the child in her bed, deceased.
"She was a sweetheart. She liked to dance around like a lot of three-year-olds.”
An unnamed neighbor, PennLive, April 3, 2018
She had discoloration around her mouth, eyes, and cheeks. Higgins later confessed to her mother that she and Bennett had been doing meth the previous night.
She also reportedly handed over a bag with numerous needles and a spoon with heavy white residue to her mother. It’s been reported that the two parents had a habit of using the drugs as soon as they laid their hands on them.
According to a reconstruction of the events, the couple's drug dealer, Fayetteville resident Rodney 'Allen' Mower, 43, had stopped by at the residence at around 5 pm on January 5 to deliver the meth.
Police stated that Mower was supposedly the only one to visit the home that day and did not leave until after the toddler's death the next day. He told police that the parents had put up a baby gate at their bedroom door before injecting the meth.
Starliper and their 10-year-old son would stand outside and watch their parents get high. Numerous friends, family, and relatives have come forward to say that they suspected the couple physically abused the toddler in the months leading up to her death.
They claimed to have seen mysterious bruises and marks on the girl. Authorities confirmed this by saying that they uncovered communications between the couple that indicated they had neglected and abused their children.
PennLive reported that one of the neighbors said, “Her death, that's hard to grip." Following the release of the toxicology results on March 22, 2018, criminal charges were filed against the pair.
They currently face five felonies, including those for third-degree murder, drug delivery resulting in death, and involuntary manslaughter. The parent's also faced two counts of endangering the welfare of children, and misdemeanor drug possession charges stemming from the Controlled Substance, Drug, Device, and Cosmetic Act.
Both are currently behind bars without bail at the Franklin County Jail and are set to appear in court this month for their preliminary hearings before Magisterial District Judge Duane Cunningham. Mower is also in prison after he was charged with drug delivery resulting in death and was also held without bond.
The toddler's death was said to be the sixth overdose death in Franklin County this year. Last year saw 35 deaths which meant it was close to three a month.
Franklin County District Attorney Matthew Fogal said, "The death of this sweet, innocent little girl is the most heartbreaking example of the danger the overdose epidemic has brought to our community and region.”
He added that they would avenge her and would not rest or tire in working to prevent such an incident from happening to others.
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