It’s still unknown exactly what events led to the recent drowning of a baby in a Caldwell motel bathtub, but Police Captain Charles Darling says irresponsibility and use of illegal narcotics by the parents played a large part.
Darling says 36-year-old Michael Fredrickson and 24-year-old Samantha Lange cried when the baby died, but seemed to show no remorse by the time he served the warrants for their arrest.
He says CPS informed him that the mother failed a drug test and the father refused to take one, and a subsequent a search of the motel rooms yielded enough information to obtain two arrest warrants for each parent: one for possession of a controlled substance, the other for endangering a child.
Darling, who attended the baby’s autopsy, says CPS has the couple’s other child, a two-year-old, in custody, and are looking for a safe foster home.
Fredrickson and Lange remain in jail.
Charles Darling visits with WTAW’s Kat McMullen