Cocaine Cited in Death of Boy, 10

JOLIET, Ill. — Despite his family’s insistence that he could not have done it, a coroner’s report says a 10-year-old boy drowned because of his use of cocaine.

The report says the fourth-grader apparently had used cocaine, causing him to lose consciousness and drown in a YMCA swimming pool in April, the Chicago Tribune reported in Sunday’s editions.

“I’ll go to my grave and they’ll never convince me that my grandson used drugs,” said Geraldine Baker, Andrew Baker’s grandmother, who reared the boy for the first nine years of his life.

Andrew’s mother, Jolene Williams, with whom he has lived for a year, said she does not believe the lab results and has sued the YMCA for negligence.

“Where did he get it? How did he afford it?” demanded Williams, 30.

The pathologist who performed an autopsy on Andrew found a cluster of fungi in the boy’s heart--evidence that the boy had been injected previously with a dirty hypodermic needle or impure drugs, said Chief Deputy Coroner William Ferguson.

The fungus, combined with the cocaine in Andrew’s blood, caused an inflammation of the heart, the autopsy showed. Andrew’s heart beat irregularly while he was swimming, and the boy lost consciousness and drowned, the autopsy report said.