A 33-year-old De Soto woman has been charged with several crimes after allegedly crashing her vehicle on May 19 in St. Louis while using drugs and having her 3-year-old child in the back seat.
St. Louis Circuit Court records show Mandy M. Schlef has been charged with the class C felony of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, the class A misdemeanor of unlawful use of drug paraphernalia and the class B misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated-drug intoxication.
Around 6:10 p.m. on May 19, a St. Louis police officer responded to a vehicle crashed into the median on southbound I-55 near Bates Street. The officer said he saw Schlef in the driver’s seat with her eyes closed and found a spoon and mirror in her lap and a syringe in her right arm, just below the bicep, according to the probable-cause statement.
The officer said emergency personnel attempted to revive her from “what appeared to be a heroin overdose.”
Schlef responded to the treatment and was revived, the officer reported. He said he found capsules with residue on them in the driver’s seat.
Her 3-year-old child was in a car seat in the back seat, the report said.
A St. Louis Police Department spokeswoman said May 22 that Schlef was in the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections in St. Louis.
If convicted, she faces maximum penalties of up to seven years in prison for endangering the welfare of a child, up to one year in jail for unlawful use of drug paraphernalia and up to six months in jail for driving while intoxicated-drug intoxication.
Authorities did not report whether Schlef or her child was injured in the crash or under whose care the child was placed.