Dorothy Annette Clements, 30, of Spotsylvania, Virginia, was charged with murder and felony child neglect after her 4-year-old son died from eating THC gummies, police said.[1] She was arrested on 19 October, two days after a grand jury indicted her over the May death of her son.[1] Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office Major Troy Skebo said child-victim detectives learned from doctors that the boy’s toxicity level showed a high level of THC.[2] The boy was 4-year-old Tanner Clements and his mother bought a jar of Delta-8 THC gummies the same day he ate them in May 2022, prosecutors said.[3]
Police said Clements failed to get her son help quickly enough after he was found unresponsive on 6 May at a Fredericksburg home they were visiting, and that he died two days later.[1] A doctor told detectives the boy could have been saved if he had received medical attention sooner.[1] An autopsy found THC, the ingredient in marijuana that gets people high, was the cause of death, NBC Washington reported.[1] NBC4 Washington reported that the boy had a medical emergency at a home he and his mother were visiting and died two days later, and that the station had also reported an empty THC gummy jar found in the house.[4] Clements told police she called poison control after the boy ate half of a CBD gummy and was told he would be fine, but police said her claims did not match evidence found at the home, where a detective reported finding an empty THC gummy jar.[1] Spotsylvania County sheriff’s investigators, quoted through a WWBT report, said the boy died on 8 May after a medical emergency two days earlier.[5]
Clements faced up to 40 years in prison on the murder charge, and her arraignment was set for 1 November.[1] Prosecutors later alleged she was solely responsible for her son’s death and that he ate up to 15 Delta-8 THC gummies from an empty jar, while she admitted to eating five gummies.[3] In June 2023 a Spotsylvania County circuit court judge sentenced her to 10 years in prison, with 5 years suspended, after her murder charge was amended to involuntary manslaughter and she accepted a plea deal; the felony child-neglect charge remained.[3]
