Grandmother says heroin addiction led to infant's death

In yet another example of the devastation caused by heroin, the drug's unrelenting grip was blamed in the death of a 4-month-old boy.

Killian Ronan drowned after his grandmother, 43-year-old Kathy Huff, took him into a bathtub and then overdosed on a heroin-fentanyl mixture, prosecutors said.

Huff – who pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges including involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison – had agreed to babysit Killian the afternoon of Oct. 3, prosecutors said. Killian was her daughter's son.

Huff's husband, Bruce, had gone to the grocery store, said Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Seth Tieger. After he left, Huff prepared a bath for herself and Killian.

When Bruce Huff returned to their Whitewater Township home, he found his wife and grandson in the bathtub. The infant was floating in the water, Tieger said. Kathy Huff was unconscious.

Paramedics were able to revive Huff using Narcan, a drug that reverses the effects of an overdose. Killian died two weeks later at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Kathy Huff remembers only getting ready for the bath, Tieger said, then waking up after the Narcan was administered.

With her long brown hair concealing much of her face, Huff wept throughout the hearing in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court before Judge Jerome Metz.

When given a chance to speak, Huff said only, “I’m sorry.”

One of her attorneys, Charlie Rittgers, said Huff hid her addiction from her family, including her husband.

“By the time they found out” about her addiction, Rittgers told Metz, “it was too late.”

“It’s something that will haunt Kathy Huff and her family for the rest of her life,” he said.

Huff's family pushed for probation and treatment, instead of prison, Tieger said. Killian's father wanted a minimal prison sentence, he said.

Tieger said his office overruled those requests.

An innocent baby had died, "due to her addiction," he said. "There has to be price to pay."

Huff also pleaded guilty to theft and forgery charges. She had worked as a home health aide for an elderly woman who suffered from serious medical problems, Tieger said. Huff used the woman's credit card to make about $2,100 in unauthorized transactions at businesses including Kroger as well as Google, court documents show. She also admitted forging a $75 check.

Those crimes, Tieger said, likely were related to her addiction to heroin.