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Pair indicted in boy’s cocaine overdose death
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A Mahoning County grand jury Thursday indicted the mother of a 9-year-old boy who died the day after Christmas of a cocaine overdose and her boyfriend.
Raenell Allen, 39, and Kevin Gamble, 40, both of Midland Avenue, face three counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of corrupting another with drugs and endangering children.
Allen’s son, Marcus Lee, died at Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley, Boardman, on Dec. 26. An autopsy found he died of a massive cocaine overdose.
Marcus was in the care of his mother at her house when he became ill. An autopsy was performed Dec. 28 at the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office, which took samples to be tested. The samples tested positive and came back May 1.
The day Marcus died, police interviewed Lee and Gamble, and Lee gave police permission to search her home. Officers did not find anything out of the ordinary.
Marcus was taken to the hospital by ambulance, and when he died, police were called. A urine sample detected drugs, but since Marcus was on medication, it was decided a more comprehensive drug screen was necessary.
In the interim before the toxicology results came back, police treated the case as a suspicious death. After receiving the toxicology results, police tried to interview her again, but she got a lawyer, police said.
Marcus was a student at McGuffey Elementary on the East Side, and his mother was an educational assistant at the same school. She went on family medical leave at the beginning of May.
The Mahoning County Coroner’s office ruled Marcus’ death as accidental. Police are still not sure how Marcus may have ingested the cocaine but said the amount was so large that Marcus became seriously ill immediately.
Neither Gamble nor Allen is in custody.
Allen has no criminal record other than parking or traffic tickets.
In Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, Gamble was sentenced to probation in 2000 on a charge of aggravated trafficking in marijuana; in 2003, he was sentenced to 14 months in prison on a drug-possession charge.