Baby twins test positive for Fentanyl, parents charged with child abuse

SANTA ANA – A Garden Grove couple who had two 5-month-old twin boys test positive for fentanyl in their system, with one baby also sustaining a skull fracture, pleaded not guilty to child abuse charges this week.

Lauren Marie Hinton, 30, and Alexander Santiago, 34, were both charged Tuesday with two felony counts of child abuse and endangerment. Hinton was also charged with a felony count of bringing fentanyl into jail, according to court records.

The two, who entered their not guilty pleas in the jail courtroom in Santa  Ana, are next due in court for a pretrial hearing Jan. 19 in the West Justice Center in Westminster.

Hinton brought one of the babies to Children’s Hospital of Orange County on Friday because she said “something’s off” with him and after running tests doctors discovered the victim allegedly had fentanyl in his blood and a skull fracture, Garden Grove Police Department Sgt. Nick Jensen said.

Rainbow fentanyl pills, found by Drug Enforcement Administration officers in a LEGO box in New York, are seen in this handout picture, October 4, 2022. Drug Enforcement Administration/Handout via REUTERS

Police went to the family’s home to talk to the father and found the victim’s twin also allegedly had fentanyl in his system, Jensen said.

Late last year, a 1-year-old boy at a day care in New York City’s Bronx died of fentanyl overdose.

Authorities later determined that the boy and other children had been exposed to fentanyl, and said the day care was being used as a fentanyl mill.

Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin, has been blamed for a rise in US drug deaths.

More than 100,000 deaths a year have been linked to Fentanyl overdoses since 2020.

The death toll is more than 10 times as many drug deaths as in 1988, at the height of the crack epidemic.

In Los Angeles County, fentanyl has surpassed methamphetamine as the leading cause of overdose deaths, according to a recent report from the LA County Department of Public Health. (With CNS report)