A report from the government agency that oversees all state agencies has cleared the Maine Department of Health and Human Services for its lack of action to protect a 3-year-old Old Town girl who later died from exposure to fentanyl.
Hillary Goding, 29, was indicted by a Penobscot County grand Jury in August 2021 on charges of depraved indifference murder, manslaughter and violating conditions of her release related to the death of her daughter Hailey, who died after she accessed her mother’s fentanyl.
Hailey was one of three children in the Bangor region allegedly killed by a parent in June 2021, prompting a fresh round of scrutiny of the state’s child welfare system and an outside investigation into the deaths.
An autopsy revealed that Hailey died from a brain injury that was consistent with an opioid overdose, and an initial urine screen at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center showed that the 3-year-old had fentanyl in her system, according to Maine State Police Detective Dana Austin’s affidavit for Goding’s arrest. It also said that Hailey had ingested drugs about a year earlier as well.
Goding carried Hailey’s lifeless body in and out of her Old Town apartment for 20 hours before seeking medical help, according to Austin’s affidavit.
A report issued Friday by the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability determined that despite a previous instance in 2020 in which Hailey was also exposed to fentanyl and hospitalized, DHHS officials did not have enough evidence to take Hailey away from her mother.
A year before Hailey died, DHHS’ Office of Child and Family Services received a report that Goding had taken Hailey to an emergency room after the child picked up a piece of tinfoil on a playground and potentially ingested some sort of substance, according to the report.
While preliminary tests on Hailey at the time showed she had ingested cocaine, further testing found she also had fentanyl in her system as did Goding, the report said.
A subsequent investigation by DHHS couldn’t prove that the drugs that entered Hailey’s system came from any in the possession of her mother, according to the report.
Within Maine’s legal framework, DHHS personnel can’t remove a child from its guardians without meeting a hefty legal requirement, according to the report.
OPEGA found that in Goding’s case, despite suspicions noted by DHHS personnel that Goding had previously endangered her child’s welfare, the agency did not have enough evidence to satisfy a court, the report said.
Goding, 30, pleaded guilty in September to manslaughter, a Class A felony crime, and violating her bail conditions, a Class C crime. In exchange for her pleas, the Maine Attorney General’s Office dismissed a murder charge.
She was sentenced to 26 years in prison with all but 19 years suspended in November.
