An 8-month-old boy died in a Roseville hotel room from an overdose of fentanyl that belonged to his mother, according to charges.
Wynona A. Littlewolf, 29, was charged Thursday in Ramsey County District Court with two counts of second-degree manslaughter in connection with the death of Ashton Michael Littlewolf more than two years ago at the Double Tree Hotel on Cleveland Avenue.
Littlewolf does not have a court hearing scheduled, and court records do not list an attorney for her. She is serving time in the Shakopee prison for a burglary in Cass County.
Explaining Friday why the charges came more than two years after Littlewolf was implicated, the County Attorney's Office said "there were no public safety concerns, because the defendant was already in a Department of Corrections facility on another offense and there were no statute of limitation issues, so other more urgent cases took priority."
Ashton's online obituary read that "he loved when people played and talked to him. He was a very happy baby. He sure loved eating his food and being in his walker. He recently just started crawling. His favorite movie was 'Home.'"
According to the criminal complaint:
Littlewolf and her boyfriend awoke on the afternoon of March 12, 2022, and found the boy was purple.
They started driving to a hospital but got lost and stopped at a metal recycling business in St. Paul for help. Truck drivers there called 911, medics arrived and pronounced Ashton dead at the scene. The medics noted that the boy appeared to have been dead for a considerable amount of time.
The boyfriend said they were in the Twin Cities for medical appointments and checked in to the hotel the previous day.
Littlewolf said they put Ashton to sleep in his crib around 3 or 4 a.m., and she and her boyfriend went to bed sometime before 6 a.m. She awoke about noon, and some time passed before she checked on her son and saw his complexion was purple and he was he was not breathing. Littlewolf and her boyfriend left immediately with Ashton to find help.
A police search of the hotel room turned up a burnt piece of tin foil and rolled-up dollar bill on the floor. Analysis of the items by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) found they both tested positive for fentanyl, as did Littlewolf's blood.
Littlewolf told investigators on March 30, 2023, that Ashton was crawling around the hotel floor. When shown a photo of the rolled-up dollar bill, she said, "Oh, my God" and suggested her boyfriend probably used it. But she admitted having never seen him snort with a rolled-up dollar bill.
Asked whether she felt responsible for Ashton's death, Littlewolf replied, "I think I should have been watching him more. ... I should have been watching him a lot more, but I pushed him off [to my boyfriend]."
