A six-year-old autistic boy jumped from a second-storey apartment window in Fairmont, West Virginia, and subsequently tested positive for cocaine, prompting police to charge his mother with felony child neglect. Stevie Thibodeaux, 30, initially told a responding deputy she had been asleep when her son jumped and showed childproof locks she used to keep him safe, leading officers to treat the incident as an accident. The case escalated the following day when hospital staff informed Child Protective Services that the boy's drug test had come back positive, triggering a criminal investigation into how the child had accessed cocaine.

Police obtained a search warrant and found a white powdery substance, a food stamp card and a straw used for snorting drugs inside the family's flat. Thibodeaux was arrested when she returned home during the search and later admitted to officers that she used cocaine in the apartment, allegedly leaving the drug-laden plate accessible in a closet. She is being held on a $5,000 bond and has not yet entered a plea; if convicted of gross neglect causing a substantial risk of death or serious injury, she faces up to ten years in prison. The boy's current condition had not been disclosed as of Thursday afternoon.