SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. — A Spotsylvania County mother charged with murdering her own son by giving him THC-laced gummies faced a judge Tuesday morning, and pled not guilty to the charges.
The Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office says Dorothy Clements allowed her 4-year-old son, Tanner, to eat at least one THC laced Gummy. Doctors report finding an "extremely high" amount of THC -- the compound that can get you high often found in cannabis edibles -- in Tanner's system after his death.
Prosecutors have not revealed how many gummies they believe Tanner ate, or what specific type of THC edible it was.
On Tuesday, her public defender brought up how little evidence prosecutors have actually released while holding Clements in jail. Her next court date is Nov. 21.
Before any of the charges Clements faces were brought, she spoke to WUSA9 over the phone in an exclusive interview, saying she thought she had bought harmless CBD gummies from a Fredericksburg store. Clements said had no idea the gummies she bought actually contained THC.
WUSA9 visited the Spotsylvania house Clements was staying at shortly after her child’s death in May. She teared up when she remembered the moments she saw her child barely breathing after eating those gummies.
The Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office has said it does not believe Clements’s story because it doesn’t match evidence seized at that home.
"Detectives from the Child Victim Unit investigated the death and learned from doctors that the child toxicity level showed a high level of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol)," a statement from the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office said. "Detectives believe the child ingested a large amount of THC gummies. The attending doctor told Detectives that had medical intervention occurred shortly after the ingestion, it could have been prevented the death."
A police affidavit obtained by WUSA9 says the 4-year-old showed a THC blood level that was, in one doctor’s words “extremely high.”
A grand jury indicted Clements with felony murder and child neglect in late October.
Here’s what Clements told WUSA9 on the phone before she was charged:
- Tanner was sitting right next to her when he began to show difficulty breathing.
- She realized somehow that he had eaten a gummy.
- She thought it was not going to cause harm and called poison control, but Tanner later died at the hospital.
- She said the boy suffered from a “cardiac episode" and said that post-mortem, it was determined her son “had something odd with his heart.”
What makes this death and arrest unique is that this is one of the first murder charges in the country alleging the involvement of THC gummies.