Silly ‘dopehead’ mother, Raven Lynn West, delivers full term, stillborn baby after snorting heroin a day defore delivery
23-year-old Alabama mother held after delivering full term, stillborn baby after snorting heroin
Stillbirth came months after her older baby also tested positive for drugs
Raven Lynn West confessed to snorting heroin Oct 8, delivery was Oct 9
Arrested and jailed over circumstances of birth of first child in 2015, she’d been released from jail on bond 2 days earlier to deliver her baby
State attorney and local police call for her bond to be revoked
Could be jailed on child endangerment charges
Dopehead mother, Raven Lynn West admitted to snorting heroin the day before she delivered a full-term stillborn baby
A 23-year-old Alabama mother arrested earlier this year when her newborn baby tested positive for drugs is facing jail again after authorities say she delivered another baby – this one stillborn at full term.
Raven LynnWest admitted to authorities that she snorted heroin the day before she delivered a full-term stillborn baby. She faces jailed time on child endangerment charges.
West from Jefferson County, Alabama, delivered the stillbirth on October 9, just days after being released from jail on bond. Alabama.com reports that She had first been arrested and jailed for child endangerment charges on May 4, 2016, but was released the same day, before again being put behind bars on August 19 after failing to appear before court.
The warrant she was arrested for was issued in 2015, and was linked to the birth of her first child.
Raven Lyn West could be jailed on child endangerment charges, after sneaking out of a facility to snort heroin a day to her due date. She had been let out on bond for the delivery
Jefferson County Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney Bill Veitch had filed a motion to revoke bond for West after the Oct. 9 death of her son,citing her continued drug use as a breach of her release.
The court papers outlined the days leading up to the stillbirth, which include West walking away from a drug treatment facility and doing drugs in the hours leading up to the delivery.
Police say they became aware in July last year that West had tested positive for drugs, her newborn child at the time was also found to have heroin and codeine in its system.
Released from jail on bond on October 6, when she was 37 weeks pregnant, and taken to a facility for drug-addicted pregnant women, Raven West confessed to walking away from the center on October 8 to buy a bag of heroin. She then snorted the drug in the bathroom of a local business in Birmingham.
West told police as she inhaled the drug, she could feel her baby kicking. County DA Bill Veitchis asking the court to hold West without the option of bond until her trial.
State Attorney Bill Veitch submitted that West’s bond be revoked, ‘she should be jailed until her trial for child endangerment charges’
Bill Veitch submitted ‘The defendant is a danger to herself and to the community’.
concerned about the safety of both mother and children born to addicted parents, Pleasant Grove Police Lieutenant Danny Reid also called on the court to take action on the case of Raven West had just been arrested this May after her previous, older newborn baby tested positive for drugs in 2015. He drew a direct comparison in her case to that of 21-year-old Alexandra Nicole Laird who the court ruled should be jailed last month without bond until her baby is born in about 14 weeks.
Laird had previously been indicted after her first daughter was born addicted to heroin, and was hit with child endangerment charges related to her unborn second child. However, the mother’s doctors at UAB Hospital opted to hold her there until she gives birth rather than send her back to jail. 
State Attorney BillVeitch and Police Lt Danny Reid compared the West case to Alexandra Laird’s (photo). Laird is on court ordered incarceration until giving birth to her second child after her first was born addicted to drugs
‘This is the exact scenario that police and the District Attorney’s Office was [and still are] trying to prevent in the recent Laird case,’ Lt. Reid said.
‘The Alethia House, while well-intentioned, does not have control of its patients, who use their sympathy and lack of control to simply walk away when they get the slightest urge to use drugs.
‘In this case, West, who was nine months pregnant, was released from jail to go to the Alethia House where she promptly left and took a large blast of heroin.
‘Less than 12 hours after she admitted that she snorted heroin, she delivers a dead baby that she said she felt kicking just earlier that day. A dead, viable, 7-pound baby. I am absolutely sickened and heartbroken over this. ‘
A trial date for West has not been set.
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