From Staff Reports
July 22, 2008 10:03 pm
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A woman who was arrested last week and a man who committed suicide have both been connected to the death of a 2-year-old boy.
Vadney Michelle Blake, 22, Montgomery, was arrested July 16 on charges of neglect of a dependent and conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine. Deputy Bill Dougherty, who is helping investigate the case, said Wednesday the investigation continues, and more charges may be filed in the case.
Blake’s boyfriend, Jeff Truelove, 40, Jasper, committed suicide at Truelove Church Cemetery near Loogootee after fleeing from Jasper police who stopped at his house to check on the status of his probation on July 14.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, the investigation began May 29, when Jasper Memorial Hospital reported a 2-year-old boy was being treated in the emergency room for scratches and bruising to his face and ear. The child’s mother, Vadney Blake, told Child Protection Services Case Worker John Potts that the child received the injuries from running into her knee.
The morning after the supposed accident, the child’s grandfather, John Blake, woke the child to find his face was scratched and his nose plugged with mucous. The child was inconsolable, restless and clingy. John Blake took the child, Vadney Blake and Vadney’s mother, Linda Kelly, to Jasper Memorial Hospital to have the child checked.
There, a physician diagnosed the child with a sinus infection, gave him a shot and sent him home. He could not say definitely that the child had been abused.
Potts followed up with the family on May 30 and accompanied the child to another doctor’s appointment. The nurse practitioner said she did not believe anyone in the room had abused the child but did say the injuries were suspicious. She obtained urine for a drug test for the child.
One June 2, Vadney Blake failed a lie detector test questioning her about her child’s injuries, and on June 6, the child’s drug test came back positive for methamphetamine and amphetamines.
After further investigation, Blake eventually admitted to police that she began seeing Truelove in the middle of May and began using methamphetamine with him. She smoked the drug from foil while at a cabin with Truelove and her child on May 26. The next morning, May 27, bruises appeared on the child’s face and ear, and he began to vomit.
Blake smoked methamphetamine with Truelove again in a car on May 28 with the child in a car seat in the back of the car. The child had scratches on his face and was not himself the next day, according to the affidavit.
She also left the child alone with Truelove while she went to rent a video and purchase the methamphetamine ingredient pseudoephedrine.
Blake admitted she had lied about the abuse of her son from the beginning of the investigation, and she suspected Truelove may have been hurting her son, but she wanted to keep their relationship a secret. She also admitted physically abusing her son.
Blake’s son died June 28 at Riley Hospital in Indianapolis. Autopsy results are not completed yet.
On July 14, officers searched the cabin belonging to the family of Brad Edwards where Blake and Truelove had smoked meth together. During the search, someone drove up to the cabin on a four-wheeler with no lights on, then fled through a cornfield when officers tried to stop him. Officers later apprehended Edwards after his four-wheeler broke down.
Edwards, 33, Cannelburg, is also facing charges for possession of meth, dealing meth, resisting law enforcement, maintaining a common nuisance, possession and sale of precursors, illegal transportation of anhydrous ammonia, possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia.
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