Croton mom charged with negligent homicide in death of daughter, 6

Six-year-old Lacey Carr died of an overdose in a room strewn with drugs and alcohol, prosecutors said Wednesday as they charged her mother, Kathleen Dymes, with criminally negligent homicide in the Croton girl's Easter Sunday death.

Carr's body was found in her mother's bedroom, along with Benadryl, generic Valium, morphine, oxycodone, and an open container of alcohol along with heroin hidden under the bed, they said.

Authorities stopped short, however, of charging the 51-year-old Croton-on-Hudson resident with purposely killing her child, instead suggesting that the former registered nurse created an unsafe environment that led to to the girl's death.

"This defendant failed in her most basic role as a mother and caregiver: To ensure the safety and well-being of her child," District Attorney Janet DiFiore said in a statement. "As a former nurse, she could know only too well the dosage and interactions of the drugs her daughter had ingested that led to her death."

Dymes was also charged with misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, according to an indictment unsealed in court Wednesday.

She pleaded not guilty and was released on $25,000 bail. She faces a maximum sentence of four years if convicted of all the charges.

She will appear in court again on September 29.

Lacey, a first-grader, had lethal levels of Benadryl, an over-the-counter medication, morphine and diazepam — the generic form of Valium — in her system, prosecutor Doreen Lloyd said during Dymes' arraignment before Westchester County Court Judge Barry Warhit.

Investigators said the morphine had been prescribed for the girl's father, David Carr, who did not live with Dymes and their daughter.

Carr was the one who discovered Dymes kneeling and unconscious near her dead daughter. Two handwritten suicide notes were found in the bedroom, prosecutors said.

Dymes, using a wheelchair, sobbed during her arraignment. Her lawyer, Peter Tilem, said she had suffered circulation damage to her legs during the two weeks that she spent in a coma at Phelps Memorial Hospital after the incident. Dymes was released from the hospital nearly two months later, and more recently broke her right foot while in rehabilitation for her injuries, he said.

"This is a tragic accident," Tilem said. He said most families keep medication in their homes that children could inadvertently access.

Lacey's father, David Carr, was in court for the arraignment along with Dymes' elderly father. Both appeared to be there to support Dymes, and David Carr spoke to her and gestured toward her when she was brought into the courtroom.

Prosecutors said at the hearing that the 6-year-old, a first-grader at Carrie E. Tomkins Elementary School, was last seen by someone outside the family at a play date the Thursday evening before she was found dead. Following that, Dymes texted back and forth with David Carr, who did not live with them, about Lacey having a stomach virus.

Early that Sunday, Dymes sent Lacey's father a garbled text saying the child "took a pill," prosecutors said. He went to the house but was unable to get into the bedroom. As the day wore on, his worry grew, and he forced his way into the room — finding Lacey dead and Dymes incapacitated.

Tilem said after court that Dymes does not remember what happened. He said she misses her daughter, who slept in her bed every night.

"She's devastated," he said.

Dymes had surrendered to face the charges earlier in the afternoon at the Croton police station.

She remains at a rehabilitation facility at this time, according to the district attorney's office.

Dymes is a registered nurse who has been the subject of professional misconduct cases twice. She is not currently registered with New York state.

She was suspended for three months in 2012 and placed on two years professional probation after she was convicted of driving while intoxicated, attempted false written statement and petty larceny, all misdemeanors, the state Office of Professional Discipline shows. In 2002, she was suspended for a year after admitting to diverting Demerol from the nursing home where she worked for her personal use, records show.

According to court testimony, her criminal record includes a 2005 drunken driving charge, a 2007 charge of making a false report and a 2010 case out of Albany for allegedly filing false time sheets.

Lloyd, the lead prosecutor in the case, is chief of the Westchester District Attorney's child abuse bureau. She also led the case against Lacey Spears, a Rockland mother who was convicted earlier this year of murder for poisoning her son to death with salt.