11-year-old Haverhill girl who died tested positive for fentanyl

A beloved 11-year-old Haverhill girl who slipped into a coma and died last month after a sleepover at her great-uncle’s single-room apartment tested positive for fentanyl in her system, officials at Lawrence General Hospital told investigators, a police report released today states.

Miguel Rivera, 58, who the Lawrence Police Department report alleges made several trips to a common hallway bathroom and waited at least 13 minutes to call 911 after his great-niece Precious Wallaces went into medical distress in his Lawrence home, was ordered held without bail today by Lawrence District Court First Justice Lynn C. Rooney pending a Jan. 29 dangerousness hearing.

Police believe Rivera tried to distract them from Wallaces’ suspected fentanyl exposure in the bathroom by telling them she likely got into his prescription sleeping pills and that he thought she would be OK.

Rivera, standing handcuffed, listened to a Spanish interpreter as pleas of not guilty were entered on his behalf this morning to charges of assault and battery on the Consentino School sixth-grader causing substantial bodily injury, witness intimidation and misleading police.

Cynthia Rivera, the girl’s grief-stricken mother, sat rocking in the courtroom with a distant stare. Family members refused comment as they left.

During a recorded interview with detectives Dec. 15, Rivera attributed the lapse in time before he sought professional help to having tried to save Wallaces himself after he was awakened by her labored breathing at the foot of his bed. He said he rolled her onto her side “and wiped mucous away from her nose and mouth,” the police report states.

Rivera then carried his great-niece to a sink and attempted to revive her by splashing water on her face before laying her back on the bed and administering chest compressions. Her brother Jaydon Wallaces, who was also visiting, slept through the event until first responders arrived, Rivera told police.

Personnel at Lawrence General Hospital informed a Lawrence police detective “that Precious Wallaces tested positive for having fentanyl in her system” before she was flown by helicopter to Tufts Medical Center in Boston, according to the report. She died two days later.

Video surveillance turned over to investigators by Rivera’s landlords showed Rivera and the children arriving at his home on Jackson Street in Lawrence at 7:36 p.m. on Dec. 14. Wallaces is last captured on camera at 8:34 p.m. returning to Rivera’s room after using a common hallway bathroom, a timeline included in court documents shows. She went to the bathroom 12 minutes after Rivera went in and changed his clothes.

There are no more sightings of the family until 3:13 a.m. on Dec. 15, when Rivera makes three trips to the bathroom in 21 minutes. He is then recorded letting EMS medics into the building at 3:38 a.m., according to the timeline.

Police reported Rivera later told them “he was nervous” and had gone to the bathroom to “throw his prescription away … the one they gave me to sleep,” as well as other pills. He said he feared his great-niece had gotten hold of the medication. When questioned about a white object he had in his hand, Rivera said it was toilet paper.

He claimed he tossed a pill bottle in a dumpster the next day, but police said it was never recovered.

Rivera allegedly admitted to police he never mentioned pills to doctors treating Wallaces or to her mother.

“I was scared,” he said. “I was afraid.”

Police said of Rivera’s behavior before emergency medical technicians reached Wallaces, “Miguel was not acting appropriately for the given situation and did not appear to have any sense of urgency … As a result of Rivera’s initial statement the investigation was misled to focus on the common bathroom, on the second floor, believing that is where Precious was exposed to fentanyl.”