Chesco Parents Sentenced To Decades In Prison After Child Overdoses On Fentanyl

WEST CHESTER, PA — A Chester County couple who were high on fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin when their 8-year-old son died of an overdose were sentenced to prison Wednesday.

Coatesville's Mousa Hawa, 43, will spend the next 22.5 to 45 years in prison, while Holly Back, 42, was booked for 20 to 40 years, Judge Analisa Sondergaard ruled.

The incident occurred in June 2024.

The parents claimed they told their young son to never touch their "medicine," the district attorney's office said.

However, the drugs and drug paraphernalia were found around his body, and a medical examination revealed he died from the combined effects of ingestion of fentanyl, morphine, and cocaine, according to the DA.

The couple had Narcan in the room with the child, but did not take steps to help the child until it was too late, officials said.

“This was a case about parents who continually disregarded every basic parental responsibility and allowed their child to ingest fentanyl and cocaine," Chester County District Attorney Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe said in a statement. "Because they chose to put themselves above their child, we prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law."

Text messages from the night before the incident showed that Hawa and Back were discussing drug use and how the child knew not to touch their "medicine," as they called the heroin and fentanyl, according to the DA's office.

Hawa was performing CPR on the child when first responders arrived, and several open baggies were in the room near him, police said. He was taken to Chester County Hospital were he was pronounced dead within the hour.

Blood and urine samples taken from the child found cocaine and fentanyl in his system. His hair samples also returned positive for fentanyl, indicating that exposure had been ongoing for some time prior to the day he died, according to authorities.