When Vernice Harris was hanging outwith her friends, she would give her 2-year-old daughter Bryanna doses of methadone “to keep her quiet,” Baltimore police said. Ultimately, those doses proved fatal.
Harris, 30, was charged Dec. 22 with the first-degree murder of her daughter in June ? after a medical examiner?s report showed “a substantial amount” of methadone coupled with blunt force trauma to the abdomen caused the child?s death.
“Witnesses supplied taped statements that Vernice Harris would beat Bryanna Ashley Harris all the time for no reason other than asking for food or to be held,” homicide Detective Irvin Bradley wrote in his report. “They also stated that when Vernice Harris had her drug-addicted friends over, she didn?t have time for the child.”
Medics rushed Bryanna from the 1700 block of East 25th Street at 3:30 a.m. on June 5, 2007, after Harris called 911 once she found that her daughter wasn?t breathing.
Bryanna was dressed in pink sweat pants, a white top and a plastic diaper at the time of her death.
Investigators found the home “in disarray,” with the entire dwelling infested with roaches, police said.
Child Protective Services has charged Harris three times with neglect ? in 2002, 2005 and most recently in April 2007 ? and once with child abuse, in 2000.
The April 2007 case is pending; the 2002 and 2005 cases were substantiated; and enough “evidence [was] found to substantiate” the child abuse case, according to court documents.
Harris has two other daughters, 10 and 6, who have been taken from her and placed in foster homes, according to police.
