Deputies investigating fatal drug overdose in the Keys find children living in squalor
Florida Keys deputies investigating the suspected heroin overdose of a Key Largo man Sunday morning found four severely neglected children living in the RV where the body was found.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies found the body of Kyle Franklin Rohman, 32, lying in a bedroom in the back of the RV parked on Ocean Bay Drive shortly before 8 a.m.
Deputies say there were syringes and other drug paraphernalia, including spoons and NARCAN, a drug used to revive overdosing opiate users.
The children, ages 13, 7, 6 and 2, were found unbathed wearing dirty clothes on makeshift plywood bunk beds about 4 feet away from where Rohman was found dead, said Adam Linhardt, sheriff’s office spokesman.
The RV had no running water, which meant no working shower, bathtub or toilets, Linhardt said. There was rotting food in the sink and refrigerator, as well as a sink full of dirty dishes. Deputies said the RV was infested with bugs and smelled like urine.
The children’s mother, Ashley Joelle Connolly, 34, was the one who called 911.
She told Detective Darnell Durham that she and Rohman shot up heroin around 4 a.m. Rohman got up to inject more, while she smoked marijuana, she told Durham.
Connolly told Durham that Rohman became unresponsive. She tried performing CPR on him at first, before dosing him with the NARCAN.
Deputies arrested her on four felony counts of child neglect. On Monday evening, Connolly was being held in county jail on a $100,000 bond.
The Florida Department of Children and Family Services placed the children in the care of family friends, Linhardt said.
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 6:57 PM.
