Midland woman arrested on criminally negligent homicide charge after death of two-year-old child

According to the Medical Examiner's report, the cause of death for the child was hyperthermia and the manner of the death was an accident.

MIDLAND, Texas — Thirty-four-year-old Amanda Nicole Ward has been arrested following the death of her two-year-old child.

Ward has been charged with criminally negligent homicide. The incident occurred back in March of 2023.

According to the affidavit, Midland County Sheriff's Deputies were called to the home of Ward on March 23, 2023 in reference to a two-year-old child not breathing and unresponsive. Midland Volunteer Fire Department and EMS also arrived on the scene to help and determined the child to be deceased soon after arriving.

According to one of the volunteer firefighters, Ward said that she took a nap, woke up and noticed her son was missing. After looking through the residence, she got in her vehicle where she found her child unresponsive on the floorboard. Ward attempted to perform CPR on the child until the child went into the possession of the firefighter who said the child's body felt "lifeless".

The firefighter also observed Ward throughout the situation and said she was not very emotional and seemed to be clearly under the influence.

On March 24, a pair of investigators took Ward from her mother's residence to a location to get a blood sample. Ward admitted that the test would come back positive for meth as she had ingested some earlier. The blood samples were then sent over to the Texas Department of Public Safety Laboratory for testing.

On June 28, a medical examiner's report came back from the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences at Dallas, which stated the cause of death was hyperthermia with a contributing factor of bronchiolitis. The manner of death was an accident. Then, on July 12, the lab results from the blood testing of Ward did show Amphetamine and Methamphetamine in her system.

Ward was arrested and booked into the Midland County Jail on Aug. 4. As of Aug. 14, Ward is no longer a current detainee with the Midland County Jail.

We will continue to update this story as we receive more information.
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“Any time there’s a loss of a child, it’s just a very tragic event no matter if it’s by natural means or by accident or by some other means,” he said.