Las Vegas police say child found dead after ingesting fentanyl-laced pill while alone in hotel room

Update Feb. 22, 2023

The cause of death was fentanyl toxicity. The manner of death has been ruled a homicide.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department says a child is dead after they ingested a fentanyl-laced pill while alone in a hotel room.

According to an arrest report from LVMPD, officers responded to The Orleans Hotel around 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday after receiving a call that the Clark County Fire Department was requesting assistance for a 3- to 4-year-old child who was unresponsive by the first-floor elevators. The child was unable to be revived and was pronounced deceased on scene, the report says.

The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified the child as 4-year-old Sequori Cayepano. His cause and manner of death were pending as of July 18.

According to police, the child’s mother, identified in the police report as Amber Mitchell, left the children in the hotel room while she was downstairs playing poker. Mitchell told police that around 1 a.m., she returned to the hotel room to check on the children, and when she woke up one of the children to go to the bathroom, he seemed “really groggy, as though he was still sleepy.” She told police the boy struggled to walk to the bathroom.

The mother told authorities that she realized her friend had entered the room earlier and left pills behind in the bathroom. She said she then noticed that the child’s eyes were constricted and thought he may have taken one of the pills. As a result, according to the report, Mitchell said she then Google searched for the dangers of taking Oxycodone, as the friend told her the pills were “Oxy’s.”

The report states that Mitchell told police that a friend she met while playing poker at another casino had brought the pills and Mitchell laid 10 pills out on the bathroom sink counter to take a photo because her friend wanted to sell them to make money.

Mitchell told authorities she put the boy back to sleep and went downstairs again to the poker table. When she returned to the room about 3:30 a.m., she saw that the child had blood coming from his mouth.

Detectives from LVMPD’s narcotics team responded to the hotel and determined that the pills tested positive for fentanyl. Detectives wrote in the report that it’s “likely that Mitchell would have been aware of this as it was obvious the pills she was selling were not from a pharmacy.”

In speaking with police, Mitchell said she was “certain” that 10 pills had been laid on the bathroom sink counter and when she noticed the pills were still there, she saw one was missing, leaving nine pills on the counter. Police confirmed nine pills that were marked with “M” on one side were recovered from the room.

After the interview was completed, the report states that Mitchell said she felt guilty about what happened and that she doesn’t “deserve children.” She added, according to the report, “I was irresponsible, I may as well have given them the pill because I wasn’t watching them. I failed them and I’m guilty for not being there.”

When asked why she did not seek medical attention for the child, according to the report, she that she is “just a mother, not a doctor. I didn’t know Oxy could kill him, I don’t know about fentanyl.”