{"id":16800,"date":"2025-12-11T01:20:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T04:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/11\/profound-failure-of-care-led-to-death-of-winnipeg-infant-who-had-meth-in-bloodstream-prosecutor-argues\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T01:20:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T04:20:59","slug":"profound-failure-of-care-led-to-death-of-winnipeg-infant-who-had-meth-in-bloodstream-prosecutor-argues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/11\/profound-failure-of-care-led-to-death-of-winnipeg-infant-who-had-meth-in-bloodstream-prosecutor-argues\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Profound failure of care\u2019 led to death of Winnipeg infant who had meth in bloodstream, prosecutor argues"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>ManitobaA prosecutor says a constellation of events in a Winnipeg home that included unsafe sleeping conditions, rampant drug use and the parents\u2019 tumultuous relationship shows a \u201cprofound failure of care\u201d in the weeks leading up to the death of a three-month-old in 2022.Closing arguments given in trial of Alison Muise, 42, charged with failing to provide necessaries of lifeOzten Shebahkeget  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Dec 10, 2025 5:45 PM EST | Last Updated: 4 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Three baby bottles seized from the Winnipeg home where three-month-old Layla Mattern-Muise died in 2022 tested positive for methamphetamine, says a toxicology report submitted to a Manitoba court. (Manitoba Courts)A prosecutor says a constellation of events in a Winnipeg home that included unsafe sleeping conditions, rampant drug use and the parents\u2019 tumultuous relationship shows a \u201cprofound failure of care\u201d in the weeks leading up to the death of a three-month-old in 2022.Alison Muise, 42, is charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life. Her unresponsive baby, Layla Mattern-Muise, was rushed to hospital and died in February 2022.Muise\u2019s judge-alone trial before Manitoba provincial court Judge Michelle Bright began in September, with closing arguments given Wednesday.A Winnipeg police officer testified in September that Muise\u2019s home wasn\u2019t safe for children, telling court there was garbage and drug paraphernalia scattered around the home, and a window was left open on a frigid February day.David Schindel, who lived in the basement, painted a picture of chaos, violence and frequent drug use in the home before the infant\u2019s death.Muise\u2019s father, Lou Muise, admitted in court last month that his granddaughter was not safe in the home, after being shown images from the scene that were submitted to court, including one that showed meth pipes inside a bedroom drawer.During closing arguments, defence lawyer Tom Rees argued the police officer\u2019s description of Muise\u2019s home does not mean a crime was committed there. He also painted Schindel\u2019s testimony as flawed because of the impacts of meth consumption on memory.Rees pointed out that Schindel testified the home\u2019s windows would be opened to air out cigarette and meth smoke. Rees argued that evidence finding meth on three of the baby\u2019s bottles did not include the quantity or concentration of the drug, and did not mention where the drug was found on the bottle.\u201dIs it a poisonous amount? We don\u2019t know. Did she consume it? We don\u2019t know,\u201d he said.Rees said the \u201cchaos and the mess\u201d inside the home on the day the baby died was partly due to the fact that some of the bedrooms were being swapped. He also said Muise \u201ctossed\u201d one room to look for a cellphone to call 911, and the home was further altered by emergency personnel.Rees said there\u2019s a difference between a home that is \u201cuntidy\u201d and one that is \u201cunclean,\u201d adding there was no documented evidence to show that urine, feces, rotting food, mould or animal or insect waste were present in the home on the day of the baby\u2019s death.The baby\u2019s father, Christopher Mattern, previously pleaded guilty to the same charge Muise faces and was sentenced in August to 21 months of time served, plus two years of probation.\u2019Evidence still falls short\u2019Mattern admitted in his court proceedings that a toxicology report found meth in the baby\u2019s bloodstream, but the report was not included in Muise\u2019s case, prosecutors told CBC News. Judge Bright called it \u201chearsay\u201d as prosecutors and the defence could not agree on the evidence in Muise\u2019s case.Court previously heard that Muise tested positive for meth twice following the baby\u2019s death, but Rees said Wednesday she maintains she has never intentionally ingested the drug.Rees argued the Crown failed to prove Muise\u2019s actions deviated from that of a reasonable person, and said she was a vulnerable victim of domestic abuse at the time of the baby\u2019s death.\u201dEven if you do not believe Ms. Muise, we say the evidence still falls short.\u201dCrown prosecutor Alanna Littman told the judge that Schindel is a former but \u201cseasoned\u201d meth user but a \u201cblunt\u201d and reliable witness.Schindel\u2019s descriptions of the \u201cregular, routine and rampant\u201d drug use taking place inside the home, particularly by Muise, matched physical evidence that showed drug use was happening on all three levels of the home, Littman said.\u2019Risk is undeniable\u2019Another Winnipeg police officer who previously testified said images of Muise\u2019s home on the day of the baby\u2019s death have since been used at a police academy as an example to show future officers when they \u201cought to apprehend a child for safety,\u201d Littman said.Although there was no direct evidence to show that the baby was exposed to meth, Littman said any level of exposure is unsafe.\u201dWhen you have methamphetamine on a baby bottle \u2026 the risk is undeniable.\u201dThe baby was born with a collapsed lung, and had slept under a cluster of blankets near an open window in the \u201ccoldest winter months\u201d of her short life just before she died, Littman said.That \u2014 on top of Muise\u2019s and Mattern\u2019s tumultuous and toxic relationship and drug users constantly moving in and out of the house \u2014 represent a \u201cconstellation of events\u201d that unfolded in at least six weeks before the baby\u2019s death, Littman said.\u201dTogether with a baby bottle with meth, that makes out the offence,\u201d she said.Judge Bright reserved her decision until early February.ABOUT THE AUTHOR\u00d6zten Shebahkeget is a member of Northwest Angle 33 First Nation who grew up in Winnipeg\u2019s North End. She has been writing for CBC Manitoba since 2022. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature and a master\u2019s in writing.Email: ozten.shebahkeget@cbc.ca<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ManitobaA prosecutor says a constellation of events in a Winnipeg home that included unsafe sleeping conditions, rampant drug use and the parents\u2019 tumultuous relationship shows a \u201cprofound failure of care\u201d in the weeks leading up to the death of a three-month-old in 2022.Closing arguments given in trial of Alison Muise, 42, charged with failing to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,127,1],"tags":[116,126],"class_list":["post-16800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-manitoba","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-manitoba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}