Andrea Dunlop

John had come on strong and quickly inserted himself into Danica's tenuous family situation.

But according to John, he was helping her stay on the right track.

But as Danica would eventually admit to the police when they pressed her with additional evidence, John wasn't such a great influence after all.

According to a CPS report made about a month after Danica and John started dating, Danica was on a maintenance dose of 65 milligrams of methadone a day.

Using stimulants like MDMA and meth while on methadone put Danica at risk for cardiac issues, delayed overdose, a reaction that can take effect hours after use, and other serious physical side effects.

The combination is also known to compromise judgment, affect impulse control, and impact memory formation, even though a user can appear outwardly normal and functional.

Her father, Larry, had been down the long road of addiction with Danica and was consistently concerned about his daughter's drug use.

And he also had some concerns about her new boyfriend.

Larry was concerned enough about the children's safety and well-being to report Danica and John to CPS in August of 2015.

About a month into their relationship, one of Danica's kids had ended up with an eye injury, which Danica and John told the CPI investigator was the result of the siblings' roughhousing with a wiffle ball bat.

The intake report notes concerns that the children were left unsupervised while they were at John's house and that they were often dirty and wore the same clothes for days on end.

It notes the suspicious injury and concerns that Danica's history of drug use was affecting her behavior.

This report also notes that Danica was arrested in front of her children for the third time that same month after she was caught driving with a suspended license.

The CPS report was closed with negative findings for maltreatment, but a later review by the Manatee County Sheriff's Office found that the investigation, quote, The CPS investigator didn't attempt to speak to any collateral witnesses other than Larry, who'd made the report, and Danica and John, who were, of course, the subject of the investigation.

no attempts were made to corroborate the story of Danica's son's eye injury and resolve the conflicting accounts of how it happened.

The sheriff's office report on this investigation noted that it should have been elevated to the child protection team.

The CPI investigator's original report dismissed the concerns, saying that the grandfather was just trying to get custody of the kids.

This investigator decided independently as a non-medical professional that the child's injuries were consistent with the story John and Danica told and did not follow up on unreturned phone calls from a school nurse and guidance counselor.

Danica also refused to take a drug screen during this investigation, and she was on criminal probation at the time.

The report notes that her last random drug screen, which had come back clean, had been seven months earlier.