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Mystery surrounds death of autistic boy, 11, who died from fentanyl overdose

Patriot-News - 3/7/2023

Elgin Britton Bey, 11, got off his school bus one day last year, walked into his Harrisburg home and asked his mom to make rigatoni for dinner.

Instead, she offered him a treat: to take him to McDonald’s.

He ate his chicken sandwich and nuggets in her car before he bounded back into his home, and up to play in his bedroom.

About an hour later, his mother found him in his bed, unresponsive, without a pulse. It was about 7:30 p.m.

First responders could not regain a pulse and the sixth-grader was pronounced dead at a hospital from acute fentanyl toxicity. The coroner ruled his death accidental.

Nearly a year later, his parents, police and prosecutors say they still don’t know how or where the boy came into contact with fentanyl that day, on April 5, 2022. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid and powerful painkiller that is increasingly found both alone and mixed with heroin and other street drugs.

A relative who visited the home that day had a heroin addiction but told police he never brought any drugs into the home in the 1400 block of Regina Street, officials said.

Officers searched the three-story row home four times but could not find any evidence of the drug, according to the boy’s father, Elgin Britton Bey, Sr.

The boy, affectionately known as “Bubba” and “Junior,” had autism and a tick, or compulsive habit, of putting things into his mouth, according to the coroner’s report.

One challenge in the investigation is the fact that the boy had been at several different locations that day and no evidence surfaced indicating where he could have picked up a pill or something with fentanyl on it.

The case remains open.

His parents remain inconsolable from their loss. Their home is a shrine to Elgin Jr. with images of him on a printed flag hanging from their porch and on a giant poster that covers their front window.

Inside, a sign with messages for the 12th birthday he missed last August still hangs on the family room wall near dozens of other pictures, banners and memorabilia with his photo or name on it.

Their son liked school, loved pizza and swimming and spent much of his time playing on his Xbox, according to his dad. One of his favorite video games was Minecraft, where players “mine” supplies to create tools and materials to build things.

He had four older sisters and was an easy child to raise, said his father, Elgin Britton Bey Sr. The boy absorbed information quickly and had a great sense of humor.

He was diagnosed with autism at about age three after his parents noticed some repetitive behaviors, like compulsively stacking cans. He had an individualized education plan at school that provided special classes including speech therapy and physical therapy.

He was curious and high-functioning, his dad said, with his diagnosis most noticeable in social situations or when he lacked awareness of what was going on around him.

“He was very intelligent but we didn’t let him cross the street by himself,” Britton Bey Sr. said. “There are a lot of kids on our block and you would see about 20 kids playing together and then my son off to the side, doing his own thing.”

He could play with other kids, but would often reach his limit socializing before his partner would.

“Then he would just say, ‘I’m done. Can you tell them to go home?’” his dad said.

Elgin Jr. enjoyed family vacations, but those trips, too, had to be in short doses. He loved annual trips with his parents to Ocean City, Maryland, where he would swim, play on the beach and pick out carved pelicans and other collectibles to buy from gift shops.

“After three days, he was ready to come back home,” his father said.

The collectibles are still prominently displayed on top of the family’s kitchen cabinets. Because Elgin Jr. loved to swim so much, his father built a small above-ground pool in their back yard. Elgin Jr. would often stare out the back sliding glass door at the pool, just to make sure it was still there, his dad said.

On the night his only son died, Elgin Sr. was at home talking to his adult daughter and holding his grandson in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Elgin’ Jr.’s mother drove the her brother home to Highspire. She also went by Dairy Queen to pick up a treat for her son.

Elgin Sr. said he could hear “junior” jumping on his bed upstairs and racing back and forth down the hallway. He doesn’t remember exactly when things went quiet.

But when Anna Smith returned home with the ice cream sundae, less than one hour after she left, she found Elgin Jr. lying on his bed, like he was sleeping. She touched his face, and it fell to the side, according to the coroner’s report, and she immediately knew something was wrong.

She called 911 and told first responders he was not taking any medication and the only medication in the home was Motrin, but it was in a locked box.

“We can’t establish whose narcotics caused the child’s overdose,” said District Attorney Fran Chardo, noting that police worked very hard on the case. He confirmed they found no evidence of drug activity in the home.

Police did not release information about Elgin Jr.’s death last year. PennLive found out about it from reviewing 2022 coroner reports, which were made public last month.

The bulk of all fatal overdoses in Pennsylvania now come from fentanyl. But overdoses involving children remain exceedingly rare.

Out of 5,531 overdose deaths across Pennsylvania in 2021, the most recent year available, 13 were of children younger than 15.

The amounts of fentanyl found in Elgin Jr.’s blood and liver were relatively low, yet still considered a fatal amount for a 100-pound child, especially one who had never ingested drugs before, according to Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick. There were no other drugs found in the boy’s system, according to his toxicology report.

Fentanyl toxicity disrupts a person’s ability to breathe and decreases the amount of oxygen that gets to the brain, causing death.

With fentanyl becoming increasingly prevalent in street drugs, people should consider keeping Narcan, the opioid reversal medicine, on hand, just in case, according to experts. Kids can get into anything and exploratory ingestions in general are very common, experts say, while cautioning that fentanyl doesn’t cause problems from touch or proximity.

A 3-year-old fell unconscious last month in Dauphin County after putting something in his mouth while in a car with his mom and one of her friends. First responders used Narcan (also known by the generic name naloxone) to bring him back.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t think your kid can get into drugs, they still find ways to do it,” said Ryan Marino, a medical toxicologist and emergency room doctor in Cleveland. “We should focus on things like naloxone that can actually save their lives and on educating them about fentanyl - and how to be safer - rather than the narrow-minded focus on criminalization and punitive measures that don’t save any lives.”

READ MORE:

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