Blurry surveillance video recorded inside Aviyana Montoya’s home on New Year’s Day in 2022 captured the last hours the 22-month-old girl was alive.
Just like any typical teething toddler, she energetically moved around the master bedroom, getting on top of furniture and the bed. She approached familiar adults, reaching out to touch and hug them, and was also observed putting objects in her mouth.
Several hours later, she was dead.
As per Brian Mason, the district attorney in Adams County, Colorado, where the young girl resided, Aviyana had a lethal dose of fentanyl in her system, reportedly ten times more than what would be needed to kill an adult who is intolerant to the substance.
Moreover, video footage captured inside the residence showed adults in the act of preparing drugs and smoking them, as reported by the district attorney’s office responsible for handling the case.
According to Mason’s office, the little girl’s father, Alonzo Montoya, “was running a drug-dealing operation out of his home.” A child fatality review team also reported the parents were known to use “’crack rock,’ and had been selling fentanyl to pay for their cocaine.”
RELATED STORY | How a 5-year-old ingested fentanyl in her kindergarten classroom
In 2024, Montoya was convicted of child abuse resulting in death and a series of other drug-related charges. A jury also found the girl’s mother, Nicole Casias, guilty of child abuse resulting in death and fentanyl possession with the intent to distribute.
A state review of the fatality made public in October revealed a communication “gap” in the child welfare system aimed at protecting children like Aviyana. Police knew about her father’s drug problem long before her death, but no one alerted the Department of Human Services or child welfare workers that he had previously exposed her to potentially lethal drugs.
“Communication is critical,” said April Jenkins, the child protection and prevention unit manager for Colorado’s Division of Child Welfare. “Law enforcement are critical partners for us and also critical in the safety of children.”
Jenkins said she could not speak about details of any specific case. Colorado state child fatality reviews do not include the names of the children involved.
An ongoing Scripps News review of child deaths and fentanyl poisonings across the country found other similar communication breakdowns between law enforcement and child welfare agencies.
In Aviyana’s case, an officer from the Colorado State Patrol pulled over her father in July 2020, and police found narcotics and drug paraphernalia in the car. Montoya faced numerous charges in connection with the traffic stop including impaired driving and child abuse. He was eventually acquitted of the child abuse charge.
In the video of the traffic stop obtained by Scripps News, he told the patrol officer he was a drug user and that he was “scared for his wife and child.” Court records show he was charged with impaired driving and child abuse.
However, according to the Colorado State Patrol, “It appears there was no request for a victim’s advocate or notification (to child welfare workers) which is inconsistent with our policy,” said Sgt. Patrick Rice, a spokesperson for the agency.
RELATED STORY |Health leaders say fentanyl testing change will save children’s lives
“Our policy is that the responding trooper contact a CSP victim’s advocate to work with human services and the family, or contact human services directly,” he added. Rice said the agency has since conducted audits and training to ensure communication gaps like this do not continue.’
“Our most recent audit through August 31 shows that we have 0% failures to notify the Department of Human Services in child abuse cases year-to-date in 2024,” he said.
Jenkins said there is no mechanism within the state court system that would automatically alert her agency that someone has been charged with child abuse.
“I think that would be helpful,” she said. Jenkins added she feels law enforcement generally does a “really great job” reviewing cases that may have slipped through the cracks and sending them to her agency when they involve child abuse.
Scripps News found other cases in which police and child welfare workers failed to communicate about a child’s drug exposure in the weeks or months ahead of the child’s fentanyl-related death.
In Aurora, Colorado, police encountered a woman who had passed out behind the wheel of her vehicle while her baby was in the car in September 2020. Medical crews revived the woman with the opioid-reversal drug, Narcan, and provided her with extra doses of Narcan to take home.
However, no one made a “report of concern” to the Department of Human Services.
In June 2021, the woman’s 3-year-old died from fentanyl poisoning, according to a state review of the death.
More: Communication gaps documented prior to toddler deaths
According to Joe Moylan, a spokesperson for the Aurora Police Department, an internal affairs review of the incident conducted after the child’s death found “the officer violated three agency policies including Responsibility for Preliminary Investigation, Unsatisfactory Performance and Mandatory Reporting to Social Services.”
Moylan said the officer was suspended without pay for 20 hours.
RELATED STORY | ‘What the hell is going on?’ Questions surround child fentanyl deaths
In Colorado, the state’s Child Fatality Review Team has made repeated recommendations in recent years for creating a task force that would develop protocol for creating a “strong working relationship/communication among (child welfare and law enforcement) agencies.”
According to the state’s 2024 Child Maltreatment Fatality Review report, many of these recommendations — some dating back several years — are still “in progress.”
“I think that’s going to always probably be in progress because you’re also going to have new people coming onto the job. You’re going to have new people training, learning how to communicate with child welfare, learning our role, learning how we work together,” said Jenkins. “I think that’s going to be something that will be in progress for a while because I think that’s an area where we always can improve. It may not ever be perfect, but I think that’s something that we’re always working on.”
Similar cases have also occurred outside of Colorado.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2-year-old Mitchell Robinson died of fentanyl poisoning in June 2022 after two previous poisonings.
The month before he died, narcotics agents found fentanyl in the kitchen, attic, and in the barbeque grill at the boy’s home, and they arrested the boy’s mother and father, charging them with numerous drug-related offenses including “illegal use of a controlled dangerous substance in the presence of a minor.”
However, according to a state review of the boy’s death, child welfare workers had “no record of being contacted by law enforcement following the drug arrests of the child’s parents.”
Communication gaps documented prior to toddler deaths
