Grandmother and friend in the Fentanyl death of Penn Hills Infant condemned

A grandmother and her friend, who both used heroin around their 7-month-old grandchild, while they condemned the child's death on Wednesday in the common Pleas Court of Allegheny County.

Barbara Ann Dunlap-Tombs, 68, from Larimer, will serve for one to two years in prison of Allegheny County after he had guilty to endanger the well-being of children and ruthless danger.

David Poindexter, 60, from Elliott, will be guilty at least 33 months after the involuntary homicide.

He was also convicted of serious assault, which came from a separate crime.

Both defendants receive a loan for the time that was delivered in the case.

Dunlap-Tombs and Poindexter watched her granddaughter Zhuri Bogle on January 14, 2023 in Penn Hills, while her parents took part in one piece, said the prosecutors.

The next morning they no longer found Zhuri. The baby died at the scene.

An autopsy resulted in acute fentanyltoxicity. The medical examiner's office also found a stamp bag in the baby's throat, which tested positively on fentanyl.

According to the deputy district prosecutor Diana Page, Poindexter was cooperative with the investigators and told them that he bought 10 stamp heroin bags that day, and snorted one of them before he went to the house to meet Dunlap-Toombs to Babysity.

Page said that he put the rest in his pocket, and in the house Dunlap-Tombs also asked for a bag for snorting.

Poindexter told the investigators when she learned that Zhuri had died, Dunlap-Toombs told him, she thought she had “dropped something” and accidentally killed the child.

Dunlap-Tombs did not tell her daughter or the police, said Page.

Page asked for a stricter range of 2 1/2 to 5 years in the state prison because Dunlap-Tombs tried to hide her participation in the crime, even though she knew from the start what Zhuri had happened.

Page said that Jill E. Rangos, Common Plea's judge of Allegheny County, the video from the Body Camera film material from civil servants who showed Zhuri's mother, a guttural cry when she learned why her daughter died, was triggered as one of the worst things she had to see.

“The defendant tried to force the co -accused to make the unique guilt for how the drugs came into the house,” said Page and urged the higher sentence.

Defender Elbert Gray, who represented Dunlap-Tombs, said the woman guilty of preventing her children and grandchildren from hearing the details of the case.

“She is here to take responsibility,” he said. “There is no reason or no reason why this happened.”

In an explanation, Dunlap-Tombs said that she thinks of Zhuri every day and every night.

“I see her in my dreams,” she said. “I'm so sorry. I miss her so much.”

Dunlap-Tombs said she hoped to rebuild the relationship with her daughter one day.

“I lost my granddaughter and daughter,” she said. “If I could die and bring them back, I would do it immediately.”

During the hearing of Poindexter, he cried during the entire summary of the case of Page at the defense table and during his own explanation.

“I loved this baby,” said Poindexter. “I loved this baby so much.”

He repeatedly apologized to Zhuri's parents.

“I am very sorry for what happened,” he said. “I wish I would have been instead of this baby.”