A 5-year-old Colorado girl tragically died of a heart attack after ingesting her mother’s “meth bong water,” CBS 4 Denver reports. Sophia Larson died on December 12, 2019 while staying with her mother, Stephanie Alvarado, who was later arrested along with Daniel Bello Alvarado and Karina Ceballos-Romo. The trio are charged with child abuse resulting in death as well as methamphetamine possession.
- Sophia’s father didn’t get a chance to see goodbye. Alec Larson received a call at 4 a.m. telling him that his daughter was gravely ill in the hospital, but by the time he arrived, she was already gone. “He let me know that Sophie had passed away from cardiac arrest. And it just didn’t make any sense to me, she was too healthy to have a heart attack,” he recalled.
- Stephanie didn’t take Sophia to the hospital right away. Despite the fact that Sophia had started to see “monsters and demons” and have other visual hallucinations, Stephanie claims she avoided taking her daughter to the hospital after she ingested the methamphetamine-containing water because she “didn’t want to lose her to the system.”
- Sophia died of methamphetamine intoxication. According to a coroner’s report, Sophia had an extremely high level of methamphetamine in her system and it ultimately caused her to go into cardiac arrest and later die. Stephanie admitted to police that she smoked the drug on her way to pick up her daughter after losing her job earlier that day.
- The prosecution vowed to hold Stephanie and others to account. Stephanie in particular was handed additional charges including “felonies of burglary, criminal trespass, and violating bail bond conditions, and misdemeanor assault and criminal mischief,” according to the Aspen Times. District Attorney Jeff Cheney said he planned to hold her and all others involved accountable for Sophia’s death, saying, “It must be said that they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. However, I intend to prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent of the law and for charges for which there is sufficient evidence which prove the elements of the available and appropriate crimes as defined by the legislature in our criminal code.”
