At 17 months old, Justin Bulley should have been safe when he fell asleep on a couch next to his grandfather in a Lancaster apartment last year.
But the baby boy never woke up from the Sunday afternoon nap. His grandfather, 74-year-old Jesse Milton Darthard, admitted to smoking fentanyl out of a glass pipe while next to the boy, and then falling asleep, court records show.
Paramedics found the child unresponsive and a medical examiner later ruled he overdosed.
A coroner’s report determined Justin’s death was accidental, but L.A. County prosecutors are pursuing murder charges against Darthard and the boy’s mother, arguing they were responsible.
Although prosecutors have previously treated overdose deaths as homicides, a case involving a baby is rare. Only once before have L.A. County authorities filed murder charges against parents or guardians whose drug use had fatal consequences for children, according to Jonathan Hatami, the assistant head of the L.A. County district attorney’s office’s complex child abuse unit.
At least 11 children under the age of 5 suffered fentanyl related deaths in California in 2023, according to the state health department. Prosecutors in some other counties have begun bringing charges similar to those filed in the Darthard case.
Authorities say they believe the tactic could provide a pathway for holding reckless parents accountable in future tragedies.
“Fentanyl is sort of like a loaded gun. If you leave a loaded gun in your house and it’s not locked up properly and you have children, and a child gets a hold of that loaded gun and shoots themselves, the parent should be responsible,” Hatami said. “That’s conscious disregard for the safety of others.”
The case highlights a new legal approach championed by both Hatami and Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, but it has also once again raised questions about the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services’ handling of past allegations of abuse and neglect before a child died.
A Times investigation last year found DCFS had opened cases against the boy’s mother, Jessica Darthard, four times since 2012. Darthard lost custody of Justin after her then-boyfriend died of a fentanyl overdose while her children were in the home in 2023.
Police and social workers’ reports showed Jessica Darthard also got into a drunk driving car crash on the 405 Freeway six months before Justin’s death. The boy was unbuckled in the backseat at the time, and his mother’s blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit, according to those documents. Hatami confirmed the details of the crash earlier this week.
As a result, Jessica was restricted to monitored visits, but under DCFS policy, she was allowed to choose a family friend to serve as the monitor, as opposed to court-appointed independent observer.
That monitor, Secret Daniel, is now charged with several counts of child abuse in the same case. There were five other children in the house at the time Justin died — including three of Secret’s own children — and all of their urine tested positive for fentanyl, suggesting they inhaled it secondhand, according to Hatami.
Secret left the house and left the children alone when she was supposed to be monitoring them, Hatami said.
“I think having friends do those type of things is probably not a good idea,” he said. “Friends will lie for you … you’re endangering children when you’re doing that.”
A DCFS spokeswoman declined to comment and referred a Times reporter to the agency’s policy on visitation monitors. Family friends are supposed to go through background checks before being approved as monitors, according to the policy, but it is not clear what factors would disqualify someone. The DCFS spokeswoman would not say, what if any, review was done in Daniel’s case.
Attorneys for Jessica Darthard and Daniel did not respond to requests for comment.
Jonathan Evans, a lawyer for Jesse Darthard, said the court would decide responsibility in the case.
“Justin’s death was tragic. No one knows how he ingested the fentanyl. Whether it rises to the level of murder will be determined in due course,” Evans said. “My heart goes out to Justin’s dad and all who loved him.”
Jesse Darthard admitted to having fentanyl in his pocket when he fell asleep next to his grandson and said the boy “must have gotten to it,” according to testimony given by a DCFS employee at a preliminary hearing in the Antelope Valley courthouse this week.
The preliminary hearing is expected to wrap up in mid-April. If a judge holds the defendants to answer the murder charges, they will proceed to trial.
Montise Bulley, Justin’s father, was in court Wednesday wearing a shirt framing an image of him holding his baby close. Father and son can be seen flashing high-beam smiles in the picture, but in court, the 52-year-old struggled to control his emotions as witnesses delivered testimony about his son’s death.
Bulley said he was furious with DCFS and the court system for allowing his ex-girlfriend and her father — who court records show has a history of drug abuse and was known to local sheriff’s department investigators as “Pops” — anywhere near his son.
Bulley said he had taken parenting and anger management classes in the hopes of gaining full custody of Justin.
But standing in the courthouse parking lot this week, all he could do was shake his head and punch his car window thinking about what was taken from him.
“He was bubbly, man. He was beautiful,” Bulley said of his son. “[He was] my turning point, why I’m changing my life around.”
Times Staff Writers Rebecca Ellis and Melissa Gomez contributed to this report.
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