San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson and District Attorney Dan Dow announced three arrests May 17 in connection with the death of 7-month-old Lilith Luhm who they said ingested fentanyl and methamphetamine.
At a Monday press conference in San Luis Obispo, Parkinson announced his department arrested Shawn Luhm and his wife Kayla Luhm for “willful cruelty to a child with possible injury or death.”
They also arrested Melissa Currie of Atascadero as an accessory for willful cruelty to a child.
Parkinson said Lilith Luhm’s death highlights a growing problem of fentanyl overdoses in the county.
“Locally in 2019, we had 53 drug overdose deaths in San Luis County, 11 of which had fentanyl in their systems,” Parkinson said. “In 2020, just a year later, we had 88 drug-related deaths, of which 34 had fentanyl in their system.”
District Attorney Dan Dow said his office has filed felony child abuse charges against the Luhms and Currie.
Dow called Lilith Luhm’s death “a tragedy that could have been prevented in our community.”