USA: Children killed by mother and grandmother had “gas station drug”

Afour children who died at the hands of their mother and grandmother in New York at the beginning of summer were poisoned with medicines for allergies and kratom, a medicine known as “gas station drug”.

The information is advanced this Friday by People magazine, which recalls the case, which happened on June 23rd. Children, aged between ten and 13, were found dead – and one of them was actually stabbed.

The mother and grandmother, with whom they lived, were also found dead, having taken their own life.

According to the press, toxicological tests are now known. According to the analysis, the six had meidcations for allergies in the system, with four of them the active ingredient of the drug kratom, a substance that in large doses is similar to the effects of opioids, such as morphine.

Both children and adults had a fatal dose of diphenhydramine – an antihistamine for free sale that is the main active ingredient of Benadryl – used to treat symptoms of allergies at lower doses.

Four of the fatalities also had traces of mitragin, the main component of kratam, a component known as a “gas station drug” that the U.S. drug agency (DEA) classifies as a “drug and chemical concern substance”. The substance is thus named because it is legally sold in convenience stores and gas stations. If administered at high doses, the substance may act as a “sedative with opioid properties” according to Yale Medicine.

The authorities did not mention which of the four victims had in the system ‘only’ the medicine for allergies and which also had this substance coming from kratom.

The children were found dead after the New York authorities went to the family home to make a check that everything was fine, after the father – from whom the mother had been separated since 2009 – contacted the police. The children's father, Brady Harmon, had been trying to get custody of the children for years, and his children should go for the summer with him to Utah, where he lived.

Old mother daughter Harper Harmon was 13. The second son, Hudson, was 11 and the twins – Gavin and Gracelynn – were ten. It was Gavin who was also stabbed, not knowing too much detail about what happened to it.