San Francisco Parents Charged With Murder After Toddler’s Fentanyl Overdose

Two San Francisco parents have been charged with murder in connection with the fentanyl overdose death of their toddler, marking a first for the district attorney’s office, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The charges against Steven Ramirez and Michelle Marie Price are in addition to child endangerment charges filed shortly after the February death of their 2-year-old, Stevie Price.

“We must protect the children in San Francisco,” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Wednesday. “We cannot have environments where fentanyl is left available to young children — to any children — in our city, that results in the tragic fatal overdose like we saw in this case.”

The toddler died overnight on Feb. 12 after coming into contact with fentanyl left out in Price and Ramirez’s apartment, officials said. When first responders arrived on the scene, hours after the child’s death, they found it cluttered with loose drug paraphernalia and different amounts of fentanyl sitting in the open, Jenkins said.

“There wasn’t really anywhere safe for this child to be inside of this home,” she said.

Ramirez and Price were initially charged with child endangerment, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Jenkins said prosecutors were waiting for toxicology reports and a cause of death from the medical examiner before bringing the murder charges.

She said her office was also waiting for evidence that the parents were aware of fentanyl’s lethality. Through their investigation, prosecutors found that Narcan, a medication used to rapidly reverse opioid overdoses, was present at the apartment and had been used on the child.

“We are looking at two individuals who understood that danger and still allowed their child to have access to that drug,” Jenkins said.

The case marks the first time the district attorney’s office has charged anyone with murder related to a fatal fentanyl overdose, years after Jenkins said she would file such charges against dealers who sold a dose that proved lethal. Prosecutors in counties such as Riverside, Placer and Sacramento have done the same in recent years.

Jenkins said the San Francisco district attorney’s office has not yet been able to link any dealers to fatal overdose cases, but she said this case is in a “related category.”

Ramirez and Price are expected in court on Thursday morning for a hearing on prosecutors’ motion to remand them into custody. The court released the parents shortly after their initial arrest in February, despite a similar detention motion.