Ohio babysitter faces murder in infant's medication overdose

Haddix Mulkey (Cotner Funeral Home)

An Ohio babysitter is facing a murder charge after cops say she gave an infant what turned out to be a fatal dose of an allergy medicine to stop his fussing, according to reports.

After Reynoldsburg police arrested Lori Conley, 43, Friday in the death last month of 8-month of Haddix Mulkey, the baby’s heart-broken mother told reporters she doesn’t know how she will ever get over the loss, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

“I will always have a broken heart because a piece of me is gone,” Katie Mulkey said at a news conference at the Reynoldsburg Police Department, according to the paper. “We had so many hopes and dreams for him and now it's all gone.”

Cops said Conley, who is being held in the Franklin County Jail, admitted she gave Benadryl to the baby because he was acting up, Fox 28 Columbus reported.

(Lori Conley (Reynoldsburg Police Department))

“She indicated the child was fussy and she was trying to calm him,” Reynoldsburg Officer Nikki Riley said, according to the station. “She admitted giving him an adult dosage of Benadryl to the child.”

At the time, Conley was babysitting Haddix and seven other infants and toddlers in her home which was not a licensed daycare, according to The Dispatch.

Reynoldsburg Police Lt. Ron Wright told the paper a neigbhor called 911 after Conley found Haddix unresponsive in his bouncy seat.

The boy’s mother said she was talking about her son to raise awareness of the dangers of using medication for unintended purposes.

“This is a common practice that people thinks it’s okay to give your babies medicine…to help them sleep,” Mulkey said, according to the Dispatch. “This didn’t have to happen."