PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) — A woman who abused fentanyl and then collapsed on her infant grandson, killing him, was sentenced to prison Friday.
Mary Elizabeth Evans, 41, of Panama City, plead to aggravated manslaughter of a child in the June 6, 2021, death of her 9-week-old grandson, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Evans admitted that she snorted ground-up pills, overdosed, collapsed and ultimately smothered her infant grandson.
“There were a lot of wonderful things said about the defendant, and they may be true, but the sad dichotomy is that there wasn’t a lot of talk about the child,” Prosecutor Peter Overstreet said during the sentencing. “I found it kind of heartbreaking … because (the victim) deserved a life and that was taken away because of her choices, and those choices have consequences.
Judge Dustin Stephenson sentenced Evans to 22 years in prison.
“Your choices have stolen the future of this child,” Stephenson said. “Nothing that I do today will change that, but the time you serve in prison will approximate the life this child would have had before he became an adult.”
