Trial underway for Wichita mom charged with murder in toddler’s 2019 methadone death
Was Kimberly Compass a neglectful mom who didn’t heed warnings about how deadly methadone could be to someone without an opioid habit?
Or was her toddler’s death from ingesting the powerful prescription drug a terrible accident?
That’s what jurors must decide this week as they weigh evidence and testimony in Compass’s felony first-degree murder trial tied to the May 31, 2019, death of her 2-year-old son, Zayden JayNesahkluah.
Following a day and a half of jury selection, testimony in the trial got underway early Tuesday afternoon after attorneys briefly outlined what jurors could expect as they sit in court over the next few days, listening to how Compass’s attempts to kick a drug addiction eventually took Zayden’s life.
Prosecutors, who plan to paint the 25-year-old single mother as a reckless caretaker who mishandled three vials of liquid methadone she got from a local addiction clinic, told jurors during opening statements that they would hear from law enforcement officers called to the south Broadway motel where Zayden turned up dead. They’ll hear testimony from the worried friend who rented the room where the family stayed and pointed out to Compass several times that Zayden slept too heavily and wasn’t acting normally that night.
Prosecutors said jurors would also hear from a crisis ministry worker who arranged a temporary living situation for the boy in the days before he died after Compass begged for help and from a doctor who would testify that 10 to 20 milligrams of methadone would be deadly for a person of Zayden’s weight.
Compass’s defense attorney, meanwhile, told jurors during his opening statements that his client is not a murderer but a “street person” living wherever and however she could, struggling to raise two young children alone and “doing everything” she could to improve her life.
Somehow, some way, defense lawyer Steve Mank said, Zayden got a hold of Compass’s methadone the day he died.
He offered no explanation for how that happened. “But she is not guilty of felony murder,” he said.
Zayden was found dead around 10 a.m. on May 31, 2019, at the Sunset Motel, 2328 S. Broadway, in a pool of his own pink vomit. The friend of Compass who rented the room told police the boy was snoring heavily and was hard to wake up when he saw him the evening before he died.
Investigators found three bottles of methadone in an unlocked box covered in superhero decals when they checked her car that morning. One of the three bottles was empty and the other two only had a small amount of pink liquid methadone left inside, an arrest affidavit released by the court in September 2019 says. Compass had gotten the bottles from the Center for Change addiction recovery clinic to hold her over a weekend the clinic was closed to relocate.
Usually she took her daily methadone dose on site at the clinic, according to testimony Tuesday.
When the clinic gave her doses to take off site to administer herself, she was supposed to keep them in a locked box away from other people. The bottles bore labels warning ingestion by anyone else could prove fatal.
But, prosecutors say, she left the unlocked box where her children could reach it — and may have even poured some of the drug into a soda can and a bottle of juice she’d bought for Zayden from Walmart.
Compass has previously denied any wrongdoing, telling The Eagle in 2019 that she thought her son died from a medical condition; he had been hospitalized for a seizure in the weeks before his death.
In her interviews with police, she also denied giving Zayden any methadone.
But the coroner determined during an autopsy that the boy had died from methadone toxicity. The arrest affidavit says the amount of the drug Zayden swallowed would have been enough to kill an opioid-addicted adult.
Compass’s trial continues Wednesday. She remains in the Sedgwick County Jail on a half million dollars bond.
Sedgwick County District Court Judge Kevin O’Connor is presiding.
This story was originally published May 18, 2021 at 10:02 PM.
