Parents indicted after baby ingests fentanyl | News

SALEM, N.H. — A Salem couple is accused of drug crimes and endangering their 9-month-old son after he swallowed fentanyl at home and was rushed to the hospital.

Jonathan Bryant, 37, and Kelly Bryant, 31, of 5 Helen Road, were both indicted earlier this month for possession of fentanyl and reckless conduct following the alleged Sept. 12 incident.

According to police, the parents knew a quarter of a pill wrapped in tin foil — believed to be Percocet — was missing somewhere in the house, but they weren’t able to find it until they noticed their baby crying in the living room with the wrapper in his mouth.

The baby showed signs of drug use, police said, like becoming suddenly lethargic, on the nod and not reacting to water being splashed on his face.

Jonathan Bryant rushed his son to Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, police said.

Police said Wednesday, several months after the night in question, that the child survived and remains in the custody of the Division for Children, Youth and Families. The couple’s other son, age 3, was evaluated at the hospital and medically cleared, according to a police report. DCYF is also responsible for him.

A police report explains that it took investigators several conversations with the Bryants to get the story of what happened.

Jonathan Bryant first told police he and his wife did not use illicit drugs, police said, but Kelly Bryant admitted to a detective that she had an addiction to Percocet and was in outpatient treatment.

Police said Jonathan Bryant later admitted that he used to be addicted to Percocet but that he had not used in over a month.

When asked again how the fentanyl — confirmed in the baby’s system through a urine test at the hospital — came to be in the house, Jonathan Bryant told police he had four people over to watch a football game Sunday, Sept. 9, and that it was possible that the drug belonged to one of them.

Three days later, when the baby ingested the potentially deadly drug, Kelly Bryant was headed to a doctor’s appointment when her husband told her that he misplaced a quarter of a Percocet pill, police said.

The drug, according to police, was bought illegally in Lawrence, “meaning it was likely not a genuine Percocet, but rather fentanyl pressed and stamped to appear to be a Percocet.”

Kelly Bryant told police she saw her baby with the empty foil when she got home.

She pulled it out of the child’s mouth, the report said, and handed it to Jonathan Bryant. But there was nothing left inside. 

Police said they eventually learned from Kelly Bryant that no one was at the house Sunday, when her husband said there had been, and that she took a pill she thought was Percocet that day.

She asked police “what would happen to me if it wasn’t my tinfoil?”

Police said they searched the Bryants’ house on Sept. 13 and found several signs of illicit drug use, including plastic baggies with white powdery residue and money rolled up with white substance inside, which the Bryants admitted to police was how they ingested the drug.

According to paperwork completed by the couple before being bailed, Kelly Bryant does not have a criminal history and her husband has been convicted of DUI.

Kelly Bryant lists her current employer as a Hudson welding company. Jonathan Bryant listed his occupation as a “floating chef,” noting that he’s worked at a Methuen restaurant for the past month.

Bail conditions prevent the parents from having custody of their two children.