Albuquerque couple pleads guilty in child overdose death case

Monique Sanchez and Thomas Soto pleaded guilty Monday to abandonment of a child resulting in death and child abuse after their infant died from fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity. The case, tied to a Super Bowl party at Soto’s apartment near Montgomery and I-25, now moves toward sentencing and leaves Bernalillo County with another stark example of how drugs and child neglect can overlap in one home.

Court records and prosecutors said the couple were hosting the party at the Arroyo Vista Apartments when they put the baby on a couch to sleep and the child never woke up. The Office of the Medical Investigator determined the infant died from the toxic effects of fentanyl and methamphetamine, and Albuquerque police later found that two other children living in the home tested positive for both meth and fentanyl. KRQE also reported that drug residue was found in a jacket on the couch, adding another layer to the evidence surrounding the child’s death.

The guilty pleas were entered in the Second Judicial District Court, closing the trial phase of a case that has drawn attention not just for its outcome, but for the warning signs it exposed. A child’s death, two other drug-positive children, and drug residue in the sleeping area point to a home where danger was not confined to one victim. For Bernalillo County, the case raises the same hard question prosecutors and advocates keep confronting in overdose-related child deaths: how many opportunities existed before the crisis became fatal.

The case also fits a broader pattern in the metro area, where child-death prosecutions involving fentanyl, meth and neglect have become a recurring part of the criminal docket. Prosecutors have recently secured a 38-year sentence in another Albuquerque case involving meth exposure that led to a baby’s death, and a separate infant death case ended in a plea and a 22-year sentence. In this case, the pleas by Sanchez and Soto bring the facts into open court, but the deeper failures around child protection, addiction and home safety remain the larger public issue for Bernalillo County.