Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas girl, 9, missed doctor’s appointment day before overdose death

Children had easy access to prescription pills found in an unkempt central Las Vegas house during an August probe on how a 9-year-old girl died, according to Metro Police.

But Ryleigh Island didn't on her own take the oxycodone and hydrocodone pills that killed her, police allege. Instead her mother, Kendra Hatch, 40, and aunt, Mylynda Hatch, negligently gave her doses of the adult prescriptions to relieve pain from a fractured elbow, according to their arrest report.

Even after the girl was given apparently fatal doses of the medication, her death could have been prevented if the women had taken her to a previously scheduled pediatric appointment the day before she died, about the same time they said they'd noticed the girl was lethargic, the report said.

The women were headed to the consultation, they told detectives, but turned the car around and took the girl back home in hopes that she would "sleep off" the overdose symptoms, the report said. Mylynda Hatch said she was "too afraid" of the questions a doctor may have asked her.

The women were arrested a week ago and each booked on one count of murder, police said. They remained in custody after court appearances Tuesday, court records show.

First responders were called about 12:30 a.m. Aug. 10 to the family's two-story house in the 2500 block of Duck Arrow Circle, near Vegas Drive and Simmons Street, police said. The girl was lying on the floor of an upstairs bedroom, Mylynda Hatch was performing CPR and Kendra Hatch was standing nearby.

Medics said it appeared the girl was in a state beyond resuscitation, the report said.

Investigators found medicine bottles in every room and a medicine cabinet in the house, the report said. Loose pills were also found on floors, mainly in Mylynda Hatch's bedroom, where more pills were also discovered in a pouch. Those pills, which weren't clearly marked, were "readily accessible" to the three children who lived there.

A single muscle-relaxant pill was found on the floor of a children's bedroom, the report said. Mylynda has twin juvenile daughters and the women's parents also live in the house.

Island fractured her elbow several days before her death, her mother said in the report. She had been given Tylenol and Advil, which she said wasn't working.

From two to four days before Island died, Mylynda Hatch, with her sister's permission, started giving the girl doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone, the report said.

Mylynda Hatch had claimed to have previous EMS training and her sister told detectives she thought she could trust her judgement, the report said.

The day before her death, Island, who aside from the fracture had pneumonia, had a scheduled doctor's appointment for an ear infection, the report said. Even though she may have needed to be hospitalized, a doctor could have detected and treated the pneumonia and the overdose of prescription pills, in turn saving her life, a forensic specialist told detectives.

The Hatch sisters next appear in court on Thursday, jail records show.

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