CHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WBTV) – A South Carolina woman was denied bond today in a court appearance related to the overdose death of an 11-month baby.
Joyce Stover appeared in court on a charge of homicide by child abuse.
Judge Brian Gibbons called Stover a “danger to the community and to herself.”
It was a battle in court on Thursday. The prosecutor asked for bond denial, laying out a chronic history of drug abuse.
Solicitor Candice Lively says Stover tested positive for cocaine or fentanyl, the drug the baby died from, on five different occasions. Stover’s record shows the same. The prosecutor says she has been arrested several times in three different South Carolina counties and in North Carolina as well for drugs. Records show she tested positive for meth months after her arrest.
”She’s still getting drugs. She’s still obviously willingly using drugs,” said Lively.
And then the prosecutor presented the open DSS investigation into Stover.
”It was determined that she had unstable housing, she tested positive for drugs and living conditions for the child were unsafe,” she said.
Stover’s public defender fiercely refuted almost all the points the prosecutor made.
”It’s just a blatant absolute miscategorization,” said Devon Nielson. “To say that this defendant was using drugs and leaving stuff behind for the child to find is absolutely untrue.”
He says Stover has not tested positive for drugs months before her baby overdosed and the fentanyl-covered spoon deputies found, he says were Stover’s siblings. As Stover cried next to her lawyer, he pleaded with the judge to set a bond so she could continue getting help.
”She wants to get out. She wants to continue to receive treatment from Hazel Pittman. She’s committed to her sobriety,” says Nielson.
The case dates back to Oct. 2021 when Chester County Sheriff’s deputies were called to a home on Elizabeth Drive in reference to an unresponsive baby.
A lethal amount of fentanyl was determined as the cause of death.
The baby’s grandmother, 55-year-old Sharon Elaine Jordan, was caring for the child at the time. The baby’s mother, 33-year-old Joyce Renee Stover, was visiting.
Stover was not allowed to be left alone with them but Jordan temporarily left the home. When she came back, she found Stover asleep and the baby on the kitchen floor unsupervised.
They were placed in a crib and shortly thereafter found unresponsive.
Investigators found bottles of NARCAN in the baby’s crib.
Both women were arrested and Jordan was charged with unlawful neglect of a child. She was given a $20,000 bond.
At the time of the arrests, Stover was denied bond.
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