Day care gets slap on wrist with meager $50 fine after baby tested positive for crystal meth

A Mississippi day care was fined just $50 following an investigation involving a 9-month old baby who tested positive for crystal meth hours after leaving the facility — a punishment the child’s desperate parents bemoaned as a “punch in the gut.”

Marla and Johnathon Demita – started to panic when their infant, Dean, started exhibiting distressing behavior out of nowhere on the afternoon of May 20, according to a shocking investigation at Mississippi Today. 

“And I’m not talking about fussy crying. I’m talking about blood curling screams,” Marla told the outlet. “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”

Marla and Johnathon shuttled the baby from the pediatrician to the children’s hospital, but no one could give them answers.

Dean, who is now 10 months old, was normally a happy baby, but after she picked him up from Little Blessings Daycare in Yazoo City he was crying and acting like he didn’t recognize her, according to the report. 

“It’s like he looked straight through me, like he didn’t know who I was,” Marla told Mississippi Today. 

The baby shrieked in agony from 7:45 p.m. on the day of the incident until 4 the next morning, according to Mississippi Today’s report. 

It wasn’t until emergency room doctors ran tests that they found the culprit: crystal meth. Hospital records obtained by Mississippi Today show Dean had an irregularly fast heartbeat and wailed for four hours straight. 

A doctor determined that Dean ingested the drugs between 12 and 4 p.m., when Dean was at the day care center, according to the report.

But the Mississippi Department of Health fined Little Blessings just $50 after Dean’s ordeal.

The agency could not confirm the baby ingested methamphetamine while at day care, according to a report obtained by Mississippi Today.

The department fined Lisa Martin, the center’s director, for failing to report what happened as required by regulations, according to Mississippi Today. 

The Health Department did not respond to Mississippi Today’s inquiries about the investigation into Dean’s case or past allegations of abuse at Little Blessings. Two prior complaints accused workers and the director of “whooping” and hitting children and locking them in dark rooms.

Martin did not respond to Mississippi today for questions for their investigation, and The Post could not reach her for comment. 

The small fine felt like a “punch in the gut” to Dean’s mother after what her son endured. 

Dean remained in the hospital for 12 hours, according to Mississippi Today. While he recovered, his parents took drug screenings. Medical records obtained by Mississippi Today show both parents tested negative. 

For the next week the baby was irritable and had no appetite. 

Dean’s parents pulled him out of the Little Blessings. He spends the day with his mom at a veterinary clinic where she is the office manager. 

“I’m having to do my everyday job and keep up with a child all day from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” she told Mississippi Today.

Crystal meth is a highly addictive, colorless, odorless stimulant. It often looks like pieces of glass, or shiny blue-white rocks and pebbles. It produces euphoric, intense psychological effects on the user, according to the Department of Justice. It can cause a host of side effects including death.

It goes by a number of street slang names as well such as Chicken Feed, Poor Man’s Cocaine, Bikers Coffee, Black Beauties and Stove Top, according to the DEA.