California Man Arrested After His 4-Year-Old Stepson Dies From Ingesting Methadone, Family Says

A California man has been arrested after his 4-year-old stepson died from ingesting a controlled substance.

Cindy Bachman, a public information officer for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department told Oxygen.com that Anthony Edward Williams, 31, was arrested July 23 for child endangerment likely to result in great bodily injury or death after Logan Alan Pittman, 4, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Authorities were called to the young boy’s home around 10:45 a.m. on July 23 after receiving a call about an unresponsive 4-year-old, according to a release put out by the department.

Logan was brought unconscious to a nearby emergency room where the medical staff tried to revive the young boy for more than an hour. The efforts were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Detectives spoke with Williams and arrested him at the end of the interview, authorities said.

Bachman declined to provide any additional details about the case. 

However, the young boy’s grandmother Kimberly Kelley told local station KABC that Logan had gotten into some methadone while in his mother’s custody and did not receive immediate medical attention.

 She said the boy’s mother told her that they didn’t call 911 until the following day.

“By the time he was taken to the hospital, he was unresponsive,” she said.

Kelley’s son Chad is the boy’s biological father but declined to talk with the news station.

Kelley hopes the family will receive justice for her grandson.

“I can’t point no fingers, but I hope and pray the investigation proves who was involved, and who all was negligent,” she said.

Logan's mom, Alexis Pope, said in a statement to the news station that the methadone had been brought into their home by an unnamed family member.

“My son is gone and it’s not our doing,” she said.

Pope said the couple allowed a homeless "family member" to take a shower at their home and he left the methadone in their refrigerator “without our knowledge.”

“We had a clean safe home for our children,” Pope said. “We just tried to help a family member take a shower and unfortunately this is the result. We are good parents and would never put our babies in danger. It could of (sic) happened to anyone if we should have known we would have done everything possible to keep our baby boy alive.”

Williams posted a bail bond and was released from custody on July 25, Bachman said.

Mike Bires, the public affairs officer for the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office, told Oxygen.com that the DA’s office had not received the case from the sheriff’s office yet. As a result, prosecutors have not had a chance to review it to determine any official charges against Williams as of yet.

The family is now left wondering if they could have done more to protect the boy and whether they should have fought for full custody, Kelley told KABC.

"Once we tried to go to court in 2017, and we weren't even allowed a judge, we just talked to a mediator,” she said. “We kind of gave up on the system, and now we're feeling we should have pressed and pressed and maybe had we pressed a lot harder, maybe the situation would have been different.”