One-year-old Mi’Vida Vorlicky died of a fentanyl overdose in December 2023 after ingesting her mother’s fentanyl at their St. Paul home. An autopsy showed she had a fragment of tinfoil in her colon.

On Monday, Assistant Ramsey County County Attorney Ryan Flynn noted in court at the mother’s sentencing how tinfoil is used to wrap and smoke fentanyl.

Tessa Jean Vorlicky (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

He said the room where Mi’Vida slept and the hallway leading to it was “peppered with these little tinfoil balls … and it is no surprise that a small child would find them fascinating and be curious about them.”

Judge Paul Yang went on to give the mother, 21-year-old Tessa Jean Vorlicky, four years in prison for second-degree manslaughter, which she pleaded guilty to in January. Her prison term was the presumptive sentence for the conviction. She was given credit for just over nine months already served in custody.

“Ms. Vorlicky, you’ve not only hit rock bottom, you fell through the bottom,” Yang said. “You killed your own baby. So no matter how much jail time you have to do, it will not be enough. Your daughter’s life is more than any jail time or punishment the law can impose on you.”

The child’s father, 27-year-old Derrick Marshawn Harrison, faces a child endangerment charge and remains wanted on a warrant after failing to show up at a January court hearing.

‘Where is the (expletive) Narcan?’

When Mi’Vida’s grandmother called 911 about the child not breathing around 7:30 p.m Dec. 1, 2023, Vorlicky could be heard screaming in the background, “Where is the (expletive) Narcan?” court documents say. “Did you give her Narcan?”

The dispatcher asked why the child needed Narcan and the grandmother said the baby had gotten into some of her daughter’s drugs. She was told to put the baby on the ground and administer the lifesaving drug, which can reverse the deadly effects of an opioid overdose.

Medics were on scene when officers arrived at the home in the 300 block of Toronto Street in the city’s West Seventh area. Vorlicky’s mother, who had called 911, told police that her daughter, Mi’Vida and Harrison were staying in an upstairs bedroom. She said she frequently finds drug residue, straws and burnt tinfoil around the house, the charges say.

Mi’Vida was transported to Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. She was given Narcan, but did not regain consciousness. She was transported to Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.

In the bedroom, police found a baggie of methamphetamine, burnt tinfoil on top of a dresser and nasal Narcan. A bag with tinfoil and suspected drugs were in a storage tote in the closet.

Vorlicky told police she smoked fentanyl the morning of Dec. 1 in a hallway with tinfoil, which she then threw away.

Derrick Marshawn Harrison (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Harrison told police he didn’t stay at the home, but went there three or four days a week to check on Mi’Vida, who had begun to crawl. He accepted responsibility for not being there for her and getting her into a better situation, the charges say.

Police executed a second search warrant at the home on Dec. 4 and recovered additional evidence from Vorlicky’s bedroom, according to the charges. Officers found four clear plastic baggies on the bedroom floor by the bed and dozens of pieces of crumpled tinfoil with drug residue in a dresser drawer. On the dresser was a loose blue pill and a computer tablet that tested positive for the presence of fentanyl.

Mi’Vida was declared brain dead the next day, and died. Organ donation was completed on Dec. 7.

‘Inexplicably, no treatment’

Vorlicky had several opportunities to go into treatment for her drug addiction, prosecutor Flynn said Monday in court.

When Mi’Vida was born, hospital staff noticed Vorlicky was using drugs, Flynn said. Child protection intervened and Vorlicky was required to undergo a chemical use assessment. She never followed through with treatment.

According to court records, on April 28, 2023, about seven months before Mi’Vida ingested the drug, Vorlicky was found slumped over in a car in St. Paul and officers found fentanyl and cocaine during a search. Her blood was drawn and she was charged with fifth-degree drug possession and DWI in October 2023 after an analysis by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension came back showing the presence of cocaine.

In the meantime, Vorlicky had picked up another charge. Minneapolis police responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle on May 13, 2023, and saw her asleep in the driver’s seat and a white bag with a white substance on top of the center console. She admitted to possessing fentanyl, but the substance field-tested positive for cocaine, the charges in that case say.

A Hennepin County judge the following August sentenced Vorlicky to the county’s Diversion Solutions program for one year. “And yet, inexplicably, no treatment,” Flynn said. “The defendant again failed to use these opportunities to correct her course in life. And she had the child at that time.”

In July, Vorlicky was released from the Ramsey County jail “by a different judge,” Flynn told Judge Yang, because she had asked to go into treatment as her manslaughter case progressed through the court. After being released from a hospital treatment program, she absconded and fled the state and was driven back to Minnesota.

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Patricia Hughes, Vorlicky’s attorney, told Yang that she began using drugs in her teens and first used fentanyl at age 16 “and couldn’t break the habit.”

Vorlicky is a “broken woman,” Hughes said, and “didn’t just flippantly leave drugs on the floor so her daughter could have access to them. … She’s chemically dependent and she needs help for it, and she wants help for it.”

Vorlicky addressed the court, saying, “Me being heartbroken is very much an understatement. I’m going to have to live with this guilt the rest of my life.”

Every day, she said, she thinks about her daughter “in that casket and how I could have prevented it 100%. I’m sorry for all the people that I hurt, including myself.”