Mom kills baby daughter with Dimetapp medicine

[Casshew]

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS -- Leesa Simmons just wanted her fussy, 4-month-old daughter Aniya to go to sleep, so she fed the baby some Dimetapp and put her to bed. It's something she had done before, she later told a deputy.

This time, though, Aniya did not wake up. After a frantic 911 call, paramedics arrived and tried to revive the baby. But it was too late.

A lab found she had been given too much of the cold and allergy medicine.

One hundred times too much, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

Simmons, 22, was arrested in February and charged with aggravated manslaughter. She faces up to 30 years in prison.

Her decision to calm her baby with an over-the-counter drug is one other parents have made when all else seems to fail -- a little Benadryl to quiet a colicky child or for a stuffy nose before getting on an airplane.

For Simmons, it had tragic consequences, authorities say. But that doesn't mean she intended to harm Aniya, said her attorney, Jeffrey Leukel.

"The state is saying she killed that child," he said. "That's just ludicrous."

Simmons told welfare workers Aniya and her twin sister, Janiya, had heart problems. She would not discuss what happened with the Sentinel.

But police and state welfare records indicate Simmons had long been suspected of failing to properly care for her children. Seven times, the state's child-abuse hotline received complaints about the family, state records show.

The calls began shortly after Simmons, at age 15, gave birth to her first child. By the time she was 21, she had had three more babies.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...news-headlines

[mysteriew]

A lab found she had been given too much of the cold and allergy medicine.

One hundred times too much, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

And the defense attorney says that this is an accident? Yeah, right!