'The Biggest Danger': Tulsa Detectives See Increase In Children Dying From Fentanyl Overdoses

Tulsa Child Crisis detectives say they're seeing an increase in the number of children dying from fentanyl overdoses.

Twice in the past month, prosecutors charged mothers with murder, after their babies died of fentanyl toxicity. Investigators say fentanyl is the number one danger to kids right now in Tulsa. 

Child Crisis investigators usually average one child death investigation a month, of any cause. But, they've investigated the deaths of nine children in the past three months and half are from fentanyl. 

Tulsa Police arrested Joshonna Bullock for murder after her 11-month-old son was found dead from a fentanyl overdose.

Related: Tulsa Woman Arrested, Accused Of Murder And Child Neglect

Police say a friend called the baby's father last November, urging him to come get the baby because Bullock was using drugs and taking the baby to drug houses. 

The father went to pick up the baby the next day and found the baby not breathing.

"In the last few years, it's gone from no fentanyl exposure at all to an epidemic,” Lieutenant Stephen Lamb with the Tulsa Police Child Crisis Unit said. 

Lamb has led the unit since 2016. He says they've always worked cases where children have been exposed to drugs like cocaine, meth and marijuana but it was rarely deadly. He says now they are getting several calls a week about kids being exposed to fentanyl, and some of them are dying. 

"I would say right now that it's by far the biggest danger to small children here in town. If there's any kind of illicit drugs in the house, it's more dangerous than guns or anything else right now,” Lamb said.

Lamb says they recently had a case where a child put car keys in their mouth and the keys had traces of fentanyl on them.

He says in another case, a two-year-old girl died after imitating her mother and snorting some blue powder that had fentanyl in it.

Related: 2-Year-Old Girl Dies From Fentanyl Overdose; Police Charge Mother With Second-Degree Murder

In that case, prosecutors charged the child's mother Njerin Samuel with murder and her boyfriend Eric Jones, with child neglect. Samuel has been arrested. 

"I would say that just the presence of fentanyl, of illicit fentanyl, or drugs with illicit fentanyl in them in the house, is child neglect at this point,” Lamb said.

Lamb said they are working with the district attorney to go after the parents or any family members who are allowing this to happen.