WESTMINSTER, Md. (AP) - A Carroll County lawyer says his client is pleading guilty to manslaughter in the drug overdose death of her 4-year-old daughter.
Defense attorney Haven Shoemaker Jr. says 46-year-old Paula Jane Shipley of Hampstead also is pleading guilty to reckless endangerment at a hearing Wednesday in Westminster.
Shipley also was charged in September with second-degree murder, neglect of a minor and first-degree child abuse resulting in death. She told allegedly told doctors her daughter Cassandra may have gotten into her prescription medications.
The Carroll County Times reports that an autopsy found the narcotic hydromorphone and the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam in the girl’s system. She also had taken over-the-counter pain and allergy medications.
Shoemaker says the autopsy was inconclusive as to how the drugs got into the girl’s system.
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