Florida infant found dead with ‘lethal amount of fentanyl,’ Sarasota sheriff says

A Sarasota couple has been arrested after their 8-month-old girl was found dead and tested positive for “lethal amounts of fentanyl,” the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

Deputies responded to the home near Interstate 75 and Bee Ridge Road at 5:12 p.m. on May 31 after a report of the death of an infant at HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital.

The girl was “ice cold” and face down on a couch cushion when she was found by a family friend, the arrest report says.

“In my 17 years of experience, I’ve never seen anything like that,” the hospital nurse told a deputy. “I’ve seen many deceased babies, but that’s the worst I’ve seen.”

The girl was last seen alive around midnight, the report says, when Nicholas Alexander put the girl in a playpen to sleep.

At the house were the couple, their 2-year-old and 3-year-old, and four other adults.

Between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m., Carissa Alexander said she was up with the baby who was “fussy and not willing to sleep.” She was also watching the 2-year-old and “cleaning the residence.”

She said Nicholas took over child care of the three children around 7 a.m. and she went to sleep.

At 10:30 a.m., two of the other adults woke up and had breakfast, and one of them helped feed the older children. The 8-month-old was seen “in a prone position on a couch cushion in the living room.”

Everyone in the house thought the baby was asleep, the report said, and it’s unknown who put the girl on the cushion.

At 1:30 p.m., Nicholas woke Carissa to take care of the kids while he went to work. When he left before 2 p.m., he said the girl was in the same position on the cushion.

Around 4:30 p.m., Nicholas and one of the men stopped for diapers on their way home, and met a third man waiting for them outside the home.

As they all entered around 4:45 p.m., the third man went to check on the baby and found her “ice cold.” He called 911 and Nicholas started CPR.

The man drove Nicholas and the baby to a nearby hospital, and Nicholas administered Narcan to the girl, “believing she may have got into his stash.” Narcan is a medicine used to treat overdoses in emergency situations.

By the time the infant got to the ER, she had been dead for several hours, an autopsy showed.

Both Carissa and Nicholas were impaired by drugs when deputies interviewed them, and they had slurred speech and were unable to stay awake, the report said.

Nicholas admitted he had injected cocaine around 1 a.m. and smoked crack around 10 a.m., and that Carissa “took a hit” of crack at the same time.

The other adults told deputies the couple struggled with addiction and drug abuse, particularly opiates.

After being taken to the sheriff’s office, both tested positive for cocaine and Nicholas tested positive for THC. Carissa had a straw with white residue that tested positive for fentanyl, cocaine, oxycodone and xylaxine, a powerful animal sedative known as “tranq.”

In April, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman held a news conference to warn Floridians about the dangers of the “zombie drug.” Sarasota County had the third-highest growth in xylazine deaths in the state from 2021-22.

An autopsy report showed the 8-month-old tested positive for fentanyl and benzoylecgonine, which indicates the presence of cocaine.

Deputies also talked to a woman who was the baby’s nanny until May 26. She said the baby fed every 3-4 hours and never slept more than six hours.

Before her death, the adults in the home said they thought she was sleeping from about 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“She went unchecked and uncared for for approximately 10+ hours over the course of the day, while (her parents) were impaired by narcotics, by their own admissions,” the report said.”

Nicholas and Carissa Alexander are each charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child and are being held without bond at the Sarasota County Correctional Facility.