A Barre Town resident has admitted to criminal negligence in the death of his infant son, who had swallowed street drugs lying around their home.
Christopher Wicker, 35, pleaded guilty last Thursday to manslaughter in the child’s death in 2022. Prosecutors recommended a suspended prison sentence of one to 15 years under a plea deal, as well as a period of probation to be determined at sentencing.
During a hearing Thursday in Washington County Superior criminal court, State’s Attorney Michelle Donnelly laid out Wicker’s felony offense. In May 2022, she said, Wicker was using regulated drugs, including fentanyl, and brought them home. His six-month-old son, identified as C.J., got hold of the drugs, ingested them and died.
Wicker, seated beside defense attorney Amanda Kitchen, began crying silently as the prosecutor and judge discussed his role in the baby’s death.
An autopsy found that the infant died of “acute mixed drug intoxication,” according to his death certificate. A state medical examiner identified the culprits as fentanyl, para-fluorofentanyl and xylazine — an animal tranquilizer increasingly used as an opioid adulterant.
The medical examiner also found a green glassine bag lodged in C.J.’s upper airway. The object resembled the street packaging for heroin, police said, and looked like the glassine bags they saw lying around the family’s home.
As part of Wicker’s plea deal, prosecutors dismissed his second felony charge of cruelty to a child that resulted in death. His sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.
C.J. is the third minor in Vermont to have fatally overdosed on opioids since 2011, according to public records obtained from the Vermont Department of Health.
The records also show that, in November 2020, a 16-year-old boy died after ingesting methadone, which is used to treat opioid use disorder. In January last year, a 17-year-old boy died from a mixture of cocaine and fentanyl.
The mother of C.J., Brianna Wicker, has been similarly charged with manslaughter and cruelty to a child in the infant’s death. She pleaded not guilty last year, and her case has not yet gone to trial.
