A baby sitter accused of giving an 8-month-old boy a fatal dose of Benadryl has been given a $750,000 bond and told to have no contact with children and no unsupervised contact with her own children.
Lori Conley was arrested Friday on charges of murder and child endangering. She was arraigned Saturday in Franklin County Municipal Court and jailed, pending her release on bond. Court records don’t name an attorney for her.
Authorities say the 43-year-old Conley was baby-sitting eight toddlers and infants at her Reynoldsburg, Ohio, home when she found Haddix Mulkey unresponsive May 13. He died at a Columbus hospital.
Police say the charges were delayed until toxicology tests confirmed the baby received a fatal dose of the over-the-counter allergy drug.
Katie Mulkey, the mother, told ABC News she was in “complete shock.”
“I want people know the good things about my son. That he loved ice cream and that he had just gotten his first tooth,” Mulkey said. “Parents are supposed to go before their children. My baby went too early.”
Lt. Ron Wright of the Reynoldsburg Police Department spoke to the Columbus Dispatch, saying Conley wasn’t running a licensed daycare center. He said she was babysitting to support her three children.
Conley allegedly told detectives she gave the child an adult dose of Benadryl “to help him sleep.”
Benadryl, a brand name antihistamine medication containing diphenhydramine, says on its website that kids under the age of 6 years old should only be dosed with the children’s version of the medication---not the adult version.
An obituary for Haddix was posted Cotner Funeral Home in in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. “Our beautiful angel Haddix James Mulkey was unexpectedly called home to be the with the Lord on May 13, 2016. In the 8 months we had him, our lives will forever be changed from the joy and love he provided,” the statement reads.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
