Parents Arrested in Drug Death of Infant

ANAHEIM — An Anaheim couple whose 8-week-old baby died last year under mysterious circumstances were in custody Wednesday after police accused them of giving the infant a lethal dose of methamphetamine.

Steven Daniel Bierly, 23, and Brandy Lee Wilson, 22, were named in arrest warrants this week in the death of their son, Steven Ray Bierly, who died last July 6.

The father was being held at the Anaheim City Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail after being arrested without incident at an Anaheim hotel.

Wilson, who was already in custody at the Chowchilla State Prison for unrelated drug offenses, will be returned to Orange County for a court appearance on the new charge, Anaheim Police Lt. Ted LaBahn said.

The arrest comes after a lengthy investigation into the newborn’s death, according to LaBahn.

Investigators would not comment on the child’s last hours of life in a room at the Palm Motor Lodge in Anaheim, nor would they discuss how they believe the drug was administered.

Police did say that, shortly after the child’s death, they discovered methamphetamine in the couple’s motel room, along with evidence suggesting they were trying to purify the drug.

“There was no evidence that it was for resale, only that they were purifying it to get a stronger kick . . . for personal use,” LaBahn said.

Investigators were called to a hospital last July, where the newborn was pronounced dead. There were no obvious signs of trauma, LaBahn said. The parents were present and interviewed, he said.

“The detectives backtracked from there, which led to the motel room,” LaBahn said.

An autopsy was inconclusive, but LaBahn said follow-up toxicology tests established methamphetamine poisoning as the cause of the infant’s death.

In the months since those test results, detectives labored to piece together a case, LaBahn said. The length of the investigation shows the difficulty in assembling evidence in child death cases, he said.

“When it’s a real small child, it typically occurs behind closed doors with virtually no witnesses outside of the parents themselves,” LaBahn said. “It’s hard to prove one or both did it beyond a reasonable doubt, especially if no one is talking and they are protecting each other.”