ST. LOUIS – After a 49-day-old baby died due to drug exposure in Lincoln County, six people accused of the murder pleaded not guilty.

Dillon Clark, Gabriel Clark, Adam Hausermann, Evan Hausermann, Selena Rodriguez, and Shawna Walton are all facing charges after an autopsy revealed the child died from fentanyl and meth exposure. 

Lincoln County is now innovating new ways to deal with some troubling drug-related statistics. 

“We think there’re between 600-700 households that’ve been affected by drugs that we can identify through law enforcement response or ambulance response to overdose deaths,” Lincoln County Sheriff Rick Harrell said. 

In those households, there are potentially more than 1,000 children exposed to drugs. 

“Something that we’ve been seeing a lot of in terms of drugs in the homes is children who are becoming addicted to drugs when they have access to them and they choose to use them or sometimes are forced to use those drugs,” Dir. Of Forensic Services at the Child Advocacy Center of Northeast MO, Michelle Stille said. 


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The CAC helps more than 1,000 children a year with services like forensic interviews, advocacy and mental health therapy. 

County prosecutor Mike Wood discussed his zero-tolerance approach to prosecuting drug crimes that result in death when he announced the charges against Dillon Clark, Gabriel Clark, Adam Hausermann, Evan Hausermann, Rodriguez and Walton. 

The county is working to provide prevention and recovery as well, not just prosecution. Sheriff Harrell said that means treating the county’s estimated 1,500 problem drug users differently than drug traffickers. 

“To treat them with harm reduction strategies and then lean in on the enforcement of the 45 people involved in drug trafficking,” Sheriff Harrell said. 

Narcan has played an important role. Local EMS and even the county coroner now leave some behind when they respond to overdoses. Overdose ambulance calls have now dropped two years in a row in Lincoln County from 104 in 2021 to 76 in 2023. Lincoln County has also formed a group called Community Opioid Response Efforts.

 “We have all different roles in this and I think if we all work together, one of those roles is with CORE and that’s preventing it from even becoming an issue,” Lincoln County Ambulance District Chief Medical Officer Shannon Burkemper said. 

CORE has been distributing pamphlets of resources and information to the hundreds of households identified by the sheriff. Sheriff Harrell believes they are starting to see results, with 8 overdose deaths last year, down from 28 in 2022. Their goal is to get to zero.