Vernice Harris Gives Two-Year-Old Methadone, Child ODs and Dies
Vernice Harris, 29, gave her two-year-old daughter, Bryanna Harris, methadone to keep her child from crying and disturbing her and her drug-addicted friends.
Eventually she gave the girl too much and Bryanna died from a methadone overdose and a beating to her stomach.
Now Vernice, whose two other daughters were taken away from her before Bryanna died, is charged with first- and second-degree murder, assault, reckless endangerment and child abuse.
At the time of Bryanna’s death, child protective services were investigating two reports that Vernice was neglecting her daughter. They had even visited Bryanna and her mother.
Why this woman allowed to keep Bryanna? She was living in squalor in a roach infested apartment. She had an obvious drug problem. Her two other girls were taken away from her.
The head of Maryland’s Department of Human Resources ordered an investigation into the agency’s handling of this case. Let’s hope that the death of Bryanna Harris is not in vain and some real changes come around in how reports of child abuse are handled.
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January 13th, 2008 at 11:36 am
What a stupid BITCH!!!!!
January 13th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Why in the WORLD were her other two children taken and not this child?!
January 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
agreed she was a “stupid bitch” apparently her addictions were more important than the child she brought into the world, being that young if she just would of given her baby the attention it needed it would of been plenty quite for her. Tell ya what Lethal injection would be too kind for this idiot. Yet another example of someone that should of been sterilized at birth.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am
What a sick piece of shit!!!! I was looking at my little boy last night and all i could think about was he is the light of my life and i started thinking about this website and was wondering who in the would could ever hurt such a beautiful miracle!!!!! These poor kids i wish i could do more for them!!!! Rest in peace little baby, god is taking care of you now!!!!
That lady needs to burn in hell!!!
January 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
This dumb bitch had two kids taken from her and she has another one- really smart. Is the concept of birth control a secret in some parts of the country? It would seem so. Obviously she didn’t use any. DUMB BITCH.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Selfish! Completely selfish! Why can’t these drugged up assholes leave the children at safe havens?? At least then she would have stood a chance. I hope that the Protective Services catches hell for this one. Another case where they failed a child and it resulted in murder!
January 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am
It is not unusual for only some of the children to be removed from a home. I’m a foster mother and have seen this first hand. Luckily, in the cases I’ve worked with, the children are all okay. This case and all the others on this site make me sad, but I also know that social service employees are way overworked. There’s a lot of turnover. There’s not much money in social work (and even though it should be rewarding to help a child in need, you must still feed your own family and pay your bills). There’s an article today about a mother who killed all 4 of her kids
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22649661/
Again, social services is taking a huge hit. Are they at fault? Maybe… but with continued funding cuts and such a high rate of turnover, who’s out there to stop this stuff?
May this child and the four sisters from the article rest in the loving arms of the Father.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
The Group that I belong to (NAIW) had a speaker from the California Department of Family Services on Tuesday last week. I am going to seee to it that they are added to our list of charities for the year. klcamp98 – Thanks for the idea!
January 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
This is yet another case in my area that DSS has dropped the ball and a child has died. The case in DC and this one. Both cases had workers visiting. Both cases workers made poor choices and the results were death.
This is not however the first case or second or even third for the DSS and CPS in Baltimore dropping the ball. This is routine for them. Mind you I Honestly do not fault the workers I instead fault those who cut up the budget and caused the hiring freezes. There are only so many workers and sadly the cases are growing for kids needing help.
This is sadly nothing new in a city I love dearly.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Another example of why doing drugs is so stupid. Why anyone would want to live like that instead of being a productive part of society is beyond me. 29 years old and living like this, there is no excuse. It’s really very sad.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Well knowing about addiction and how it works I can assure you that topic especially for Baltimore will open a huge can of worms. This city has ignored the addiction issues for too many years to clean it up over night. You have whole families who are effected You have grandparents who started as dealers turned into addicts and these kids were all raised with addiction in the family and home in many cases. Mind you NOT all people in Baltimore but the inner city has been dealing with this for many years. Baltimore’s answer to this problem as of late is to tear down whole city blocks rows and rows of homes. Push the crime further down the line much either moved into the next neighborhood down or out across county line. At No time have they made much of a effort to actually treat the problem. If you are an addict in Baltimore and you wish to get into rehab 9 out of 10 in the city have little or no insurance. IF you do however manage to get into treatment you are given it was in the late 80’s early 90’s 3 to 7 days. Now anyone with any knowledge of addiction knows that means they are just over the withdrawal part but are also Just entering the cravings part so basically they would be put right back to the same places they came from with No help no support and no where to live except the same drug house they were living in Pretty much they were back to using. Now they do in fact cover 28 days but again for addicts who have been living this way for years and have no where to go when they do get out and are clean they may stay clean a while
The system just is really screwed up in the city and the fact is there is just not enough money going into fixing the ills of the city Too busy sinking it into other things like redoing the Inner Harbor and other places like that the parts that Visitors see when they come here
I mean honestly if you visit Baltimore you think wow what a wonderful place
But get lost and end up across a couple blocks and you are hit in the face with the city’s ills well you used to be they are working hard a I said to be sure you do not see that by tearing down whole streets of homes. Who cares that they have a Homeless population Who cares that those homes could have been fixed and programs for Single Mom’s and recovering addicts could have been put into place. All that matters is how the outer part looks and how the city looks.
Sorry as I said this city is one I love dearly with all my heart and I have watched it crumble little by little with no one giving a darn.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I cannot believe that this woman retained custody of one child after two were taken out of her care. I don’t know why, but it seems like CPS and it’s equivalents are the most lax with the families that pose the most danger to their children. Drug addiction is a treatable problem, and this woman should have had all of her children placed in care until the completion of a treatment program. Not only would her child be alive, all of her children would probably grow up having respect for her due to the fact that even though she was an addict she got help for both them and herself and recovered. As adults, they might have had some very sweet memories of coming home to a Mom that was getting her life together, memories of a happy and exciting reunion.
Now, God knows what will happen to her remaining children. Let’s just hope we don’t read about them on PBB one day.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:05 am
pyscatheus;
I have some experience with CPS, and trying to get children taken away from a relative of mine.
TV portrays CPS as some slavering monster, just waiting to take children away from innocent parents. The truth is that because they have this reputation, laws are so strict that they have to work their butts off even when there is documented proof of abuse. It wasn’t enough that the parents were found with drugs, there were drugs in the thirteen-year-old’s system, and that all of the children had busies the size and shape of the parent’s hand. They had to have family members testify to actually seeing the abuse.
I wish it were easier to take children away from bad parents, but as long as there are people out there who believe that a simple swat on the butt will get your child taken away, no one will let it happen.
Heck, I have a friend who was beaten, told her teacher, had a bruise the exact shape of her father’s foot on her leg, and other bruises on her arms. CPS was called, and she told them the truth. They sent her home to spend the night with her parents. For some strange reason, the next day her entire story had changed. (She looked like she hadn’t slept and she was moving stiffly), and they believed the new story! Her parents didn’t even have to go to therapy. She did, of course.
and of course, her parents told everyone that they were in danger of loosing their child over a spanking. In fact, the father kicked her down the stairs. I know it happened, because a few weeks later I saw her father pick her up and throw her against the wall.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
i want to kill this man…i cried reading this…CPS doesnt help for nothing…taking kids away and giving them back or not taking them at all when they really need help,i hate these people that do this to their children and i wish they would all die a horrific death like im sure their poor babies did. my mpther and step father were called on by counselor when i was in the 3rd grade cause of bruises,yea cps came my brother and i both cried and begged to have my step father taken away for beating us,locking us in a room l day and sexually molesting me and do u think they did,not even close they told him what we told them and he denied everything and then was told if CPS was ever called back to the house again we would b taken away. And after my mother found out everything she still stood with him. thats y i wish they would all die the most painful death i can imagine4
January 17th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
let the mom OD on Methadone, hell give her all she can eat,as a matter of fact let’s top it off with say some alcohol and maybe a joint or 2 then she can have the slow slumbering death she gave her own child. I have no pity for this woman.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Donna, That seems like too easy of a death for this dumb whore. I say tie a rope around her neck and kick the chair out from under her – Flash pictures of her daughter so that is the last image she sees right before she dies. Grrrrrr!! I hate these stories. I wish that these children NEVER had to experience a moment of pain, hurt, neglect, torture….. It makes me so angry!
Sorry for the rant.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Selenabell,
Such a horrible story. Such a rotten, unfair way to spend your childhood. It’s not right at all. I wish it could have been different for you. I hope you’ve been able to find some good counseling to help you grow past it. That can be so hard for people. Little bits of ugliness lurk in hidden parts of our hearts and minds.
Good parenting isn’t instictive like many people seem to think, not parenting humans anyway. Love just isn’t enough. I guess you know that better than anyone. I’m sure if you decide to be a mom you’ll realize what serious work it is, put a lot of effort into it and be very good at it.
You’re very strong. Take care of yourself. Bless you.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Another proof that child protective services needs to be re organized, re structured, or seriously changed on a big level! too many kids that ‘fall thru the cracks’ are served such foul injustice….and in this case death.
January 19th, 2008 at 5:54 am
where in the hell does this pos live? For the love of god her other two kids were removed from the home so what did they think? OH WELL IT WILL BE OK TO LEAVE THIS ONE. no!! When women have children they should run a background check of some sort to see if any other children of theirs or thier spouses have been removed from thier home for abuse, neglect, ect. Do you have any idea how many lives that would save? That alone could help to stop child abuse, death and SBS cases. Not only do they need to reform DHR but they need to reform the hospital procedures also. When I had both of my kids one in 05 and one in 07 not one nurse or doctor told me anything about abuse, depression or SBS. The only thing they did was give me some papers on breastfeeding and made me watch a movie on how to bathe my children and change their diapers. No phones numbers to call if I got stressed out, no advice on what to do if I can’t get my child to stop screaming. They did not even ask me if I was a drug addict or try to help with some kind of recovery service. I’m not a drug addict but, still there were two “crack babies” in the nursery with my daughter. Aren’t we supposed to trust our doctors with the safety and security of our children? Aren’t we supposed to trust the DHR worker to process her case in a timely fashion? I once had a DHR worker tell me well…I am so overloaded with cases I just can’t do them all. WELL PICK ANOTHER JOB ASSHOLE!!! By you not choicing to file a case on time that child is going to die at the hands of the abuser and you know what that falls on your head!! I understand what it is like have an overload at work and being tired and stressed and mad. You know what if I told my District Leader “Sorry I did not get all of my paperwork done but, I was overloaded.” Do you know what she would say to me? You should have worked more hours. I know that in the state of Mississippi if you file a child abuse complaint they have a month a whole MONTH to fill it. If there office is closed for a holiday they get extra days to do it. How many things do you forget to do in one month?
January 19th, 2008 at 9:59 am
It’s rare to find a criminal who didn’t have some nasty twists in his or her childhood. We fail to learn from this, or make the effort to act on this information. Kids are not a priority in our society. We don’t alot the resources required to break this cycle. We just chase around patching things up and churning out damaged little people.
Parenting is paramount. Parenting is not instinctual. And people who had bad parenting often bring what they learned to their kids.
There’s no basic education for clueless people, like the dad who left his kids in the car in the cold, and people with mental illness and developmental delays are permitted to parent precisely as they see fit until they have committed a crime even though it may be outside their actual ability to parent decently. We are not permitted to interfere in the parenting of violent criminals until a child is hurt badly and/or repeatedly. I think it’s time to reconsider our concept of inalienable rights as they relate to children’s rights. I think our concept of inalienable rights was constructed before such horrors were exposed or permitted.
I would be willing to have my personal “inalienable rights” infringed on in a carefully examined and causiously developed way if it would save children from these horrors. My freedom from being examined as a parent is not so precious to me that I would buy it from scalded, suffocated, mangled children. I’d take tests, I’d go to classes as a condition of parenthood. Yes, Big Brother instinctively strikes fear in my heart too, but we’re so uptight about liberties I don’t think horror scenarios would develop. What else can we do when we may produce as many children as we please whether or not we are able or willing to care for them? Waiting for a child to be treated like this is not acceptible.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Amy;
I agree with you 100%. DH and I are actually child’s advocates in these situations because of childhood experiences with friends and family in abusive situations.
I blame TV more than I blame CPS. Most CPS is doing the maximum it can by law, and they are ham-strug by laws to protect poor innocent victimized parents. Because good parents treasure their children so much, the idea that anyone could take their child away frightens them. Then tend to identify with the parents in a situation like that, instead of the child.
We actually saw one mother tearfully tell her family that she was in trouble for spanking her son, when she was really in trouble for beating him sensless. And EVERYONE believed her, and CPS couldn’t release the details of the case because it had to protect the privacy of the minor involved.
Think of all the times when you’ve seen CPS featured on TV. Now go back and count how many times it was portrayed in a positive light. Almost always, it’s the big bad CPS taking children away from innocent good parents. To make matters worse, abusive parents capitalize on this, so children are TERRIFIED of telling people what happened.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Kitty, I believe you are right because here DSS do not take kids away, even when they should. I have mentioned this before about a person I know named Crystal. She is 21 years old and the worst “mother” I have ever seen. I know that CPS has been called several times. I called them 3 times myself. They did the closest thing to nothing that they could do, including calling her THREE HOURS ahead of time to annouce their arrival. That was stupid. She had time to bath her kids (for a change) and clean up the dog$hit in her house and do whatever else. It’s just so frustrating! I’m not knocking your profession at all. I’m glad that there are people out there that do what you do. It’s just that I KNOW FOR SURE that she should have those kids taken and they are still with her.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
These kind of stories really anger me. I mean here you have a woman who already had two kids taken away from her. I just can’t understand why she was allowed to keep this third child when she already proved that she was not capable of being a good mother. I would have expected Child Protective Services to be checking in on her and to have seen that she still had a drug problem and her roach-infested home was no place to raise a child. In fact as soon as the child was born she should have been taken away until her mother got clean and got a better place to stay. It’s just sad to see children go through these things. This girl was never given a fair chance at life and it’s just sad.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Just a update on this case.
Ms Harris went to court this week. She will do NO time
evidently as in any other Baltimore case the case was not strong the pleaded it out and life goes on.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-te.md.ci.harris23apr23,0,3341513.story
Poor lil baby No one stood and spoke on behalf of her. How sad.
Mind you i am all for treatment for addiction but come on A child died the addiction was a small part of this story. She was said even by her own family which also did not attend and speak for the baby that this Mom was not interested in being a parent.
By the way what happened to the grandmom who loved her grandchild and wanted custody of her? this IRKS me!