True Crime with Rachel Shannon
HEARTLESS: Mother POISONS Her Baby with FENTANYL to "Relax More"
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
When Charlette Napper Talley ended up in the hospital, no one knew what could have possibly caused her to decline so quickly. However, after investigation into what she was fed that day, this case took a very dark, disturbing turn.
Chapter 1: Why would a mother harm her child?
The question of why a mother would choose to hurt her child is one that I don't think we will ever have an answer to, whether it be postpartum psychosis or because the mother is stressed and overwhelmed. Those are frequently the reasons people will give. But in cases like this one, we don't have those answers.
Instead, it appears that this mother simply grew tired of having a child and decided to take her life away from her to make her life easier. Not only that, but she won't even admit that she was the one who did it. Today, we will be discussing the tragic murder of Charlotte Knapper Talley. Charlotte Knapper Talley was born on October 21st, 2016 to her mother, Jenea Pratt and Ramir Talley.
At the time, 17-month-old Charlotte was living with her mother in East Hills, Pennsylvania. Not a lot is known about the relationship between Janiyah and Ramir or how involved Ramir was in Charlotte's life. But unfortunately, in December of 2019, 24-year-old Ramir was killed in an officer-involved shooting.
In this case, 911 received a call to report that Ramir was threatening another man with a gun. When police arrived, Ramir ran. There was a chase, but as Ramir was running away, he attempted to shoot at police, prompting the police to return fire, killing him. So, this definitely was an unfortunate situation, but it does sort of give us some insight into who Charlotte's father was.
At the time, 24-year-old Jenea was dating a man named Albert Williams. Meanwhile, she was also taking classes at CCAC Homewood, a community college to work towards an associate degree. Obviously, taking classes and being a mother is hard, so sometimes Charlotte would be left with Albert to watch her. This is what happened on April 5th, 2018.
According to later reports, Jenea had classes that day, and while she was gone, Albert was watching Charlotte. That afternoon, he gave her some fish sticks for lunch and gave her some juice in her pink sippy cup. After lunch at around noon, Albert and Charlotte left home to go and pick Janaya up from school.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Charlotte Knapper Talley?
After picking her up, the three of them made a few stops before returning home at around 1.30 to 2 p.m. At that time, Albert left the home, but he came back only a few minutes later because he realized that Janaya's phone was still in his car. He came back to return the phone, and at that time, he also dropped off some marijuana for Janaya to smoke when she felt like it.
Once settled in at home, Janaya and Charlotte sat on the couch together and relaxed until Charlotte ultimately fell asleep. At that time, Jenea moved Charlotte to her bed where she laid her down with her sippy cup. For the next hour, a friend came over and smoked some weed with Jenea before leaving again. After that, after that hour of smoking, Jenea got back up to check on Charlotte.
Chapter 3: What led to the 911 call?
But it was at that time that Jenea realized that something was horribly wrong. She realized that Charlotte's lips looked blue and she wasn't breathing, so she immediately called 911 to report that her daughter was unresponsive. When police arrived, they walked into the home and were immediately hit with the smell of marijuana.
They then found baby Charlotte, who was lying face up in her bed, unconscious. Her lips were blue, her skin was cold to the touch, and there was no pulse. Police also observed that there was what looked to be a small amount of blood coming out of her mouth and nose. Of course, first responders attempted lifesaving measures to try and bring this baby girl back.
As they tried CPR, a thick red liquid started to come out of Charlotte's mouth, which may have been what was blocking her breathing. At this time, nobody had absolutely any idea what could have happened. One moment, Charlotte was alive and happy. She went down for a nap, and the next moment, she was unresponsive.
While first responders were attempting to save Charlotte's life, they heard as Jenea became absolutely irate. She exclaimed that if her daughter was choking, she would have cleared her mouth and she kept yelling, this isn't my fault, this can't be my fault, and I can't get in trouble for this.
While providing CPR, they had also cleared off the coffee table and in the commotion of moving her body and doing chest compressions, the officers broke the coffee table. That also made Janaya absolutely furious. She was very upset that they broke her beloved coffee table while trying to save Charlotte's life.
After beginning CPR, Charlotte was then rushed to the nearest children's hospital where medical staff continued to work tirelessly to save her life. But after just an hour at that hospital, 17-month-old little Charlotte passed away. As this was going on, of course, police wanted to speak with Jenea to figure out what was going on. What could have caused this baby to go unconscious?
Did she choke on something? Did she get into something dangerous without her mom's knowledge? Maybe she accidentally swallowed a battery or something else that can happen if a child isn't being watched closely. Things like this are unfortunate, but it can happen with even the most attentive parents.
There was no obvious sign of trauma to Charlotte, so it's not like there was any clear signs of abuse. This seemed totally and completely out of the blue. But Janaya was not having any of police's questioning. According to hospital staff, she was uncooperative, hostile, and combative at the hospital.
When detectives tried speaking with her, she stormed out of the hospital and started walking down the street, making it a third of a mile away before finally being stopped by an officer. Once they spoke with her, she expressed frustration that she was being treated like a criminal while her daughter was fighting for her life.
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Chapter 4: What did the police find at the scene?
Now, while executing the search warrant, I want to note that Jenea was home and when police went into Charlotte's bedroom to recover that sippy cup, Jenea was once again very volatile and angry. She was so insistent on keeping officers out of that room that she had to be physically restrained. At this point, there was nothing in the home to indicate what happened to baby Charlotte.
At least, nothing was obvious. So, all of these items were sent off for testing and in the meantime, Charlotte's body was sent to the medical examiner for an autopsy. The medical examiner found that the bottom of Charlotte's feet were dirty and her fingernails were extremely long for a child of her age. There was also a small abrasion to the right side of her nose.
These findings could indicate that maybe Janiyah didn't pay the closest attention to Charlotte for getting to clip her fingernails. It's possible that the small abrasion to her nose could have been from her scratching herself with her long nails.
But, other than this, it appears that Charlotte was a healthy weight, she wasn't physically abused or neglected, there was no signs of trauma to the inside or outside of her body, so it appears that she was well cared for. They also found that there was a large amount of a very thick syrupy liquid in her stomach, which is consistent with the fluid that came out of her mouth while receiving CPR.
At first, her cause of death was left as undetermined once the autopsy was complete. But then, the toxicology report came back with very disturbing findings. Turns out, there was an incredibly high dose of fentanyl in Charlotte's system. In fact, the amount of fentanyl in Little Charlotte's system was about a thousand times the fatal dose for an adult.
Imagine that amount in a child that is literally not even two years old yet. That is so, so much fentanyl to be found in that small of a body. With that being said, your next question probably would be, where did this baby get the fentanyl? How did it end up in her system? Well, after confiscating that pink sippy cup that Jenea was so hellbent on officers not taking, it was sent off for testing.
And it turned out that there was fentanyl in that sippy cup. So someone put fentanyl in that baby's sippy cup, she drank out of it, and then died as a result of fentanyl poisoning. Knowing all of this information, the medical examiner determined that the fentanyl poisoning was her cause of death and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
Fentanyl doesn't just end up in a baby's sippy cup by accident. Someone had to have put it in that cup with the intention of harming that baby girl. After finding out all of this information, Jenea was taken into the police station for an interview. Once again, Jenea was hostile and defensive.
When talking to detectives, she made it clear that Charlotte was in the care of Albert in the hours before her death. When talking to detectives, she made it clear that Charlotte was in the care of Albert in the hours before her death. She said that she was at school when Albert gave her a sippy cup full of a liquid, specifically happy juice from Huggies.
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Chapter 5: What were the autopsy findings?
Did he have that or did she have it?
It was left.
It was left there?
Chapter 6: How did fentanyl end up in Charlotte's system?
She didn't want it on the way out the door.
Okay, when you say on the way out the door, you mean?
When they left to come and get me from school.
Okay, when you came back, did she pick the sippy cup?
I didn't even see the sippy cup.
Did you give her the sippy cup at all?
I didn't see the sippy cup.
Okay. Did you put anything in the sippy cup?
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Chapter 7: What was Jenea's reaction during the investigation?
Chapter 8: What were the implications of the toxicology report?
When they left to come and get me from school.
Okay, when you came back, did she pick the sippy cup?
I didn't even see the sippy cup.
Did you give her the sippy cup at all?
I didn't see the sippy cup.
Okay. Did you put anything in the sippy cup?
No, there was a red liquid in it, and I know we had Huggies.
Yeah, I remember seeing some Huggies in there.
To be more specific, Happy Drink Huggies.
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