MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA (KYW Newsradio) — A Montgomery County couple has been arrested and is facing charges for the homicide of a young boy in their care.
Dominic Lyons, age 6, was found dead in a home on Willow Street in Norristown on July 16. Tests conducted found fentanyl and xylazine, a sedative for animals known as “Tranq,” in his system.
According to the criminal complaint, the levels in the Lyons’ system indicate he ingested the drugs and did not die from trace contact or just touching them.
The boy’s mother, 31-year-old Kristen Sabatino, and her boyfriend, 35-year-old Matthew Santiago, are charged with involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child.
A criminal complaint says Sabatino was doing CPR on Lyons when police arrived but the boy had clearly been dead for a while.
According to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, Sabatino and Santiago say they put Lyons to bed at 7:30 p.m. that Saturday because he allegedly said he did not feel well. The next day, they say they found him dead in his bunk bed shortly before 1 p.m. and immediately called 911.
No illegal drugs were found in the home, and the two told detectives they’d been clean for over a year.
But the complaint says police talked to a drug dealer who admitted he sold them heroin, and phone records show Sabatino had contacted that man two days before the boy died.
Sabatino has previous charges of using drugs and endangering her children. In 2017, she pleaded guilty after she had to be given naloxone when she was found unresponsive with her head on her son’s chest when he was five months old.
Last year, she was charged after she crashed her car in Norristown with her one-year-old daughter in the back seat. She was unresponsive in the driver’s seat and was again given naloxone.
Sabatino was arrested Friday at a hotel in Lancaster and is being transferred to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility where she’ll be arraigned.
Santiago was arrested Wednesday, with bail set at $1 million cash and a condition of no unsupervised contact with a minor. A preliminary hearing is set for Nov. 3.