6-month-old baby dies while mother was high on drugs

yinka ogunlami

December 29, 2015 5:19 PM

Stephanie Amber Tillman, 30, faces three counts of neglect and three counts of child abuse in connection with the death of the six-month-old baby.

The Careless mother, Stephanie Tillman

A mother has been charged over the death of her baby son who was found dead on a couch while she was allegedly high on prescription drugs. Stephanie Amber Tillman, 30, was found with her two older children while her six-month-old son was dead on the couch of the family home

The infant was found motionless on the sofa of Tillman's filthy home in Dallas, North Carolina, police said. At the time the infant’s body was discovered on the eve of Christmas, the mother was high on prescription drugs, according to the Police.

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Authorities have yet refused to release the name of the baby boy.

His two siblings, aged three and four, were also in the home, on Temple Lane, apparently unharmed when Sheriff’s deputies arrived.

According to reports, father of the child Jerry Allen, raised the alarm at 11.45pm on Christmas Eve after returning home from work to find his son "unresponsive, naked and alone on the living room sofa", according to Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.

Allen told investigators he checked on the child but could not find any obvious injuries.

Local newspaper, Charlotte Observer, reports that Allen found his wife in a back bedroom with the couple’s two other children.

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The scene of the happening was“filthy from human and animal waste and garbage,”according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The paper said a post mortem was due to be conducted at Baptist Medical Center on Monday to determine a cause of death.

Tillman, the negligent mother was treated at the scene and later at the hospital for injuries she received days earlier during an assault and “what appeared to be extreme intoxication from prescribed medication,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

Investigators have not released further details about the alleged assault.

In a mugshot released by the Sheriff’s Office, Tillman is shown with wounds on her face, a split lip and a bandage on her right arm.

She was being held in Lincoln County jail on Sunday night with bail set at $100,000 before her first appearance at Lincoln County District Court.

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