KMAX: News of the West

Trial begins in case of SoCal woman accused of killing son through drug use

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) A woman accused of killing her 3-month-old son with methamphetamine-tainted breast milk was so addicted that when she came down off the drug her children could not even wake her by prying her eyelids open, prosecutors said in opening statements of the murder trial.

Amy Leanne Prien, 31, was alone with her son for the last 16 hours of his life, and when she awoke to find him not breathing she did not attempt to save him but decided to ``clean things up,'' said Supervising Deputy District Attorney Allison Nelson.

Prien has pleaded innocent to murder and three felony child endangerment charges in the January 2002 death of her son Jacob Wesley Smith. The Mead Valley woman faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The Riverside County coroner originally labeled the cause sudden infant death syndrome. A month later, a toxicology report showed that the boy had overdosed on methamphetamine.

Prien's attorney, Stephen Yagman, made no opening argument Wednesday. He said outside court the baby could not have died of drug-tainted breast milk because Prien used a bottle to feed her son.

``They've got no case,'' Yagman said.

But Nelson said tests showed the dead infant had ``significant amounts'' of methamphetamine in his body.

``The mother also had methamphetamine in her body, and the evidence will prove that during his very, very short lifetime, she was breast-feeding him,'' Nelson said.

A friend of the defendant's younger daughter testified that when the death was discovered, Prien lay on the living room floor sobbing while a roommate hid a safe used to hold her drug supply and money. The roommate, Don Fox, called 911 after the safe was moved, according to 18-year-old Elizabeth King.

Three witnesses said Prien tried to separate her drug use and sales from her three older children by keeping the bedroom door closed.

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