Texas Brief: Mother gets 15 years for daughter's overdose

Texas Brief: Mother gets 15 years for daughter's overdose

September 6, 2003

From Wire Reports

FORT WORTH - A mother has received a 15-year prison sentence for using heroin with her 15-year-old daughter hours before the teen died of an overdose.

Jurors deliberated about 10 hours over three days before sentencing Debra Gatlin Clair, 49, who wiped her eyes with a tissue and solemnly turned to her family seated in the courtroom after state District Judge Wayne Salvant read the verdict.

Clair's sentence marks the first time in Tarrant County that someone has been tried and convicted for providing drugs to someone who overdosed.

"I hope a message is sent to the community at large that parents shouldn't do drugs with their children," said lead prosecutor Mitch Poe. "If they do and we can prove it, we will put them to trial for it."

According to trial testimony, Clair, her daughter Tiffany and Bradley Ray Waltermire, the son of Clair's ex-boyfriend, shot heroin at Clair's apartment on May 3, 2001.