Apr 5, 2018 2 min read

A Nemacolin couple is facing felony child endangerment charges after their 3-year-old daughter tested positive for cocaine last week.

Cumberland Township police said Arielle Laenee Jolly, 27, and Joseph Brownlee, 29, both tested positive for cocaine after their daughter was transported to UPMC-Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for treatment March 29 when the girl began acting strange.

Police said they received a report of suspected child abuse that day in which the referral stated the child was taken to the hospital due to “an altered mental status.”

The child’s parents brought her to WHS-Greene hospital near Waynesburg because they believed she was having a seizure. She had a blank look on her face, and she was drooling and sweaty, court documents indicate. The child was stable when she was transferred from the local hospital to Pittsburgh, police said.

“The child tested positive in her urine drug screen for cocaine,” investigators wrote in court documents.

When a doctor spoke with the girl’s parents and explained she had tested positive for cocaine, both appeared to be shocked, police said. They claimed there were no drugs in the home at 99 Bliss Ave., and that they had friends over the previous evening who must have had drugs and left them.

“The father did admit to smoking marijuana but not in the home. He stated he will go outside to smoke,” according to the court document.

However, both Jolly and Brownlee both tested positive for cocaine following a drug test, police said.

In an interview with police Saturday, Jolly confirmed she and Brownlee were the only ones who were watching the child for about five hours prior to her hospitalization. Police did not know how the child came in contact with cocaine.

Jolly and Brownlee were charged this week with felony child endangerment and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. Both are free on $15,000 percentage bonds before their April 17 preliminary hearings with District Judge Lee Waston.