- Tajahnae Brown, 23, of the Bronx, is accused of poisoning her four-year-old daughter and making 190 trips to the hospital to seek unnecessary medications
- She was charged Friday with attempted murder, attempted manslaughter and first-degree assault over the treatment of her daughter
- Authorities believe Brown suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which people fabricate or deliberately induce symptoms of illness
A mother in New York has been charged with attempted murder for nearly killing her four-year-old daughter with epilepsy medication she didn’t need.
Tajahnae Brown, 23, of the Bronx, is accused of poisoning her child and making 190 trips to the hospital to seek unnecessary medication.
She was charged Friday with attempted murder, attempted manslaughter and first-degree assault over the treatment of her daughter.
Authorities believe Brown suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which people fabricate or deliberately induce symptoms of illness in someone they care for, usually a child, in order to get attention.
The incidents began on May 2 when she brought her daughter, then three years old, to Montefiore Medical Center claiming she was taking seizure medication and needed more.
Tajahnae Brown, 23, has been charged with attempted murder for nearly killing her four-year-old daughter with epilepsy medication she didn’t need
Bronx mother accused of poisoning her child and making 190 trips to the hospital for unnecessary drugs
The incidents began on May 2 when she brought her daughter, then three years old, to Montefiore Medical Center claiming she was taking seizure medication and needed more.
“She repeatedly stated that the child needed the medication, prompting staff to administer more doses,” a police source said The New York Post.
Hospital staff then realized the young girl had “toxic levels” of drugs in her blood.
According to the source, she was “poisoned by the drugs.”
Brown was notified of the overdose and the girl was taken off the medication, police said.
The child was still in the hospital with the mother and her drug levels dropped before reportedly going back up.
It is believed Brown continued to “discreetly administer the drugs to life-threatening levels,” the source added.
Authorities believe Brown suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which people fabricate or deliberately cause symptoms of illness in someone they care for, usually a child. In the photo: the building where Brown lived with her daughter
Harold Williams, who lived in the same building as the mother, told News12: ‘I don’t know her, that’s a shame, any baby that is abused by its parents is horrible.
The hospital staff then called the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, which alerted the New York City Police Department.
The investigation revealed that the mother had taken her daughter to different healthcare providers 190 times to have her daughter prescribed the same harmful drugs.
Brown told doctors and nurses “the same story” to medical providers, the police source said.
Harold Williams, who lived in the same building as the mother, said News12: ‘I don’t know her, that’s a shame, every baby who is abused by his parents is terrible.
“You have to be careful, people with problems have to seek help and get the right help so that things like this don’t happen.”
She has no prior criminal record and was granted supervised release and electronic monitoring at her arraignment Friday in Bronx Criminal Court.