An Oxford woman has been arrested in connection with the drug-overdose death of her 11-month-old son and she has been charged with manslaughter in the second degree.
Police said they received a 911 call just before 2 p.m. on July 6 about a baby who was not breathing and they responded to a home on Blue Ridge Terrace.
The baby’s mother, Rebecca Dixon, 35, of Oxford, was holding the little boy and he was limp. An ambulance transported him to Griffin Hospital in Derby, where he was pronounced dead.
Rebecca Dixon was under emotional distress, so investigators spoke with her mother. She told them that she, Dixon, Dixon’s husband and the baby live together and Dixon had called out of work because she’d stayed up late the night before and the baby was fussy and cranky when he woke up, the arrest warrant application says.
Around 1 p.m, the grandmother said, Rebecca called out and the baby was face-up on the bed with no sign of life, so they started CPR, according to the arrest warrant application.
Police were told that the baby fell asleep in Rebecca’s around 12:30 p.m., she must have fallen asleep and the baby was limp when she woke up.
Investigators noted evidence of recent drug usage. The arrest warrant application says they found a glass pipe, evidence of crack use in Rebecca’s bedroom, and heroin marked, “Skittles.”
In an interview with police, Dixon admitted to snorting heroin the night before, but said she did not use it the morning the baby died.
Another person police spoke with said Dixon used heroin around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. the baby died.
Police questioned whether the baby could have come into contact with heroin and Dixon told them she didn’t think so and is careful.
On Sept. 9, the office of the chief medical examiner ruled the baby’s death a homicide and the cause was “acute intoxication, due to the combined effects of fentanyl and morphine, with recent cocaine exposure.”
Police said they found fentanyl and morphine, cocaine, benzodiazepines and more in Dixon’s blood.
Bond has been set at $100,000.
