County officials were warned about teen’s fentanyl use before she died of an overdose 

On June 25, a 17-year-old transgender teen was found dead of a drug overdose inside Kids Kottage emergency foster shelter. Washoe County’s medical examiner classified her death as an accidental fentanyl overdose, but a number of questions about her death remain unanswered and Washoe County officials are refusing to release details citing an ongoing investigation and patient privacy and safety. 

What is known, based on a death investigation report released by the Reno Police Department through a public records request, is the teen had taken a drug test that morning which returned negative for any drug use. Social workers said she had been doing well with her sobriety and was having success with a new prescription for her mental health. However, according to her mother, the teen was in possession of fentanyl a week before her death, which the mother told officials in charge of her care.

According to the reports, her room and personal effects had also been searched just that morning, and RPD investigators could find no drugs or drug paraphernalia in her possession.

A source with information on the operations inside the for-profit Kids Kottage and who asked to remain anonymous also said Kids Kottage officials relocated more than a dozen children to another building on the campus for more than a month following the death. During this time, the source said, the youth slept in waiting room areas for lack of available beds, while the building the teenager died in remained empty. 

County officials dispute that account but refused to provide details on why the children were moved and when they were allowed to return to their regular beds.

Kids Kottage is a Washoe County facility operated by Adams and Associates, formerly Core Dynamics. The company has had a contract with the county to operate the facility since at least 2014. It was renewed July 1 with a one-year, $4.375 million contract and options to renew for four additional years. Per the terms of its contract with the county, officials from Adams and Associates are barred from talking to the media or making public statements.

Signs point to an improvement

The teen who died at Kids Kottage had been in the facility’s care since March 2024, according to her mom, while the mom was in jail due to a revoked suspended sentence. Washoe County paperwork shows that, on June 18, an investigation found that there was a substantiated physical risk to the teen. Reno Police Department officials said they had no information on any investigation into the teen’s circumstances, and Washoe County officials said abuse or neglect investigation reports related to Kids Kottage are confidential due to the ages of the children involved. 

According to witness accounts and statements made by the teen’s mother, the teen’s situation was improving. On June 25, the morning of her death, a supervisor at Kids Kottage said the teen had been actively working on her sobriety and had tested negative on her last several drug tests. 

“She was slated to come home full-time that week. She was so happy.” 

The teen attended a hearing at the Jan Evans Juvenile Justice Center that morning. According to her mother, the judge was also satisfied with the girl’s progress and said, as the mother paraphrased, “She’d miss seeing [the teen], but was happy to not have to make continued appointments for appearances due to excellent compliance.” 

A Kids Kottage supervisor said they had seen the teen on her return to the facility following her court appearance. They said the teen’s mental and emotional state had improved since being prescribed medication a month prior and she had not expressed thoughts of self-harm or suicide to any of the staff members. 

She added that a social worker had recently completed house checks at the teen’s mother’s residence and said the social worker believed it was safe for the teen to return home. 

The teen had expressed concerns, a staff member reportedly said, about returning to her mother’s residence, but they did not believe it would have caused her to become suicidal. 

The staff member also said Kids Kottage staff routinely searched the teen and her belongings for drugs. This is a normal practice at the facility for teens with a history of drug use. They’d performed a search that day after she’d returned from her hearing and didn’t find anything suspicious or notable. 

Mother warned county staff of drug possession, use 

While staff members told investigators they had no reason to suspect the teen of possessing drugs—especially considering her negative drug test that morning—an email sent by the teen’s mother just a few days before her death shows otherwise. 

 “[Teen] has been doing Fetty lately,” the email sent to county social workers on June 17 read. “She asked a homeless guy downtown if he knew where she could get heroin, and he introduced her to his dealer and recommended Fetty because it’s much cheaper.”

Fetty is slang for fentanyl.

The email continued that, according to the mother, her probation only required a five-panel drug test which does not include fentanyl. 

“She also apparently doesn’t get tested for ETG [ethyl glucuronide, a byproduct of alcohol consumption], so she knows she can drink,” the email read. “With her having no parental supervision, she has been much more reckless. She tells me about the desire to drink and use drugs and what she actually does. She doesn’t hide anything from me and listens to me when I tell her not to. I’m really good at constructive redirection even though she’s so old.” 

The death of a friend caused the teen to seek out the drugs, the mother told This Is Reno, but she said she wasn’t sure if the teen had actually taken the drug until that point. 

“She told me she was using fentanyl, but after talking to her friends, I don’t think she was,” the mother said. “They do search the kids there. They even put them through a metal detector. Staff isn’t going to generally wand the children; they’re usually ‘in the bubble’ which is the office area.” 

Despite the mother’s warning to county social workers, as far as the mother understood, law enforcement was not contacted or asked to search the facility with a drug dog. 

However, two days after her death, the mom said, a social worker searched the room and located a baggie of drugs hidden inside a teddy bear. A week after her death an investigative team found residue of fentanyl on multiple surfaces within the room. The mattress had to be destroyed because of the drug’s presence, according to the mother.

Washoe County refused to confirm or deny if the information county staff received about the drug possession was passed on to Kids Kottage staff. According to the email, four different county employees were recipients of the email the mother sent warning of the teen’s fentanyl use.

According to the mother, Kids Kottage lacks supervision, and children are able to leave and come back as often as they like—regardless of their age. 

“When it comes to kids sneaking out, usually they will just run away, and it’s kind of openly known that there’s really nothing Kids Kottage can do or will do,” the mother said. “Kids can run off and do whatever they want to for however long, and when they get tired, hungry or bored, they can always go back.”

However, the mother said her daughter had a really great relationship with a particular Kids Kottage staff member. Several of the staff members attended her funeral and contributed to a book of cards, pictures and memorials from both staff and kids at the facility. 

“She aspired to be a nurse practitioner and was particularly interested in mental health as well as ER situations,” the mother said. “By aging out of the system, she would’ve been able to take advantage of a state program that would’ve paid for all of her school. She was slated to come home full-time that week. She was so happy.” 

A puzzling death

Reno Police officers responded to Kids Kottage on June 25 around 3:45 p.m. on a report of a teenager being found blue, not breathing and with foam coming out of her mouth. 

First responders on the scene told officers they were unsure of how long the teenager had been “down and not breathing.” They said Kids Kottage staff told them no one had seen the teen since around 12 p.m. 

Officers spoke with another staff member, who said she’d begun her shift at Kids Kottage at 3 p.m. and was told the teen was in her room sleeping. The staff member said she went to check on the teen at around 3:40 p.m. at which point she found the teen “blue and not breathing.” 

The report states that the staff member did not call 911 but instead called her supervisor and director. The supervisor and director are reported to have arrived and given the teen Narcan while another staff member called 911. CPR was provided until paramedics took over, according to the staff member’s witness statement. 

Contrary to what had been relayed to the first responders on the scene, the staff member told officers the teen had been seen awake, moving and responsive around 1:15 p.m., not 12 p.m. 

“There is never enough supervision there.”

The mother said she’d been told that the children are checked on every hour and that before she was found incapacitated, a staff member had checked on her and described her as “groggy,” and let her continue to sleep. However, this was not relayed to law enforcement on the scene, according to the investigative reports. 

The teen was transported to Renown where she was later declared deceased. A later autopsy revealed she had died of a fentanyl overdose, and her death was ruled accidental. 

Officers inspected and photographed the room, and according to their report they “did not observe anything suspicious or any forms of drug/narcotic paraphernalia.” 

Reason for removal of other children goes unanswered 

Kids Kottage provides emergency foster care. The shelter takes in children from newborns to teens who need emergency placement or who have behavioral issues and who may be difficult to place in other foster homes. 

Kids Kottage has three residential buildings, each accommodating around 15 children and supervised by three staff members at a time. There’s also an activity center on site. In the past, it is believed that upwards of 60 or more youth have been housed at the site. According to a report from the state’s Division of Child and Family Services, there were 39 youth at Kids Kottage on June 30, 2024.

While doors are locked on the outside, barring entry by individuals who do not have keys, they are not locked on the inside. Staff—or teen residents—are able to leave the buildings. The building where the teen died, however, was sealed for over a month following her death, according to the witness. County officials disputed this.

On the night of June 25, the witness said the children who shared the building where the teen had died were awoken during the night and taken into another residential building—one that was already filled with other foster children. The relocated youth slept anywhere they could. 

“Kids Kottage is bursting at the seams,” the witness said. “They are sleeping in the common areas, living rooms, waiting rooms. I can’t remember a time they haven’t had kids sleeping in common areas.” 

However, the witness said, “As depressing as that may sound, the alternative would be sleeping in a social worker’s office.” 

“But to have the whole building offline … there were at least 20 kids housed there,” they said. “They moved them to a different building that was full to the gills. They cannot possibly fit all these kids into these two buildings. Given the shortage of beds in the foster care system, something weird had to be going on for that building to be shut for that long.” 

According to the witness, the 15 or so children were moved into a mobile home on campus that typically houses teenagers. 

The teen’s funeral took place on July 13, two-and-a-half weeks after her death. However, by that point, the third building where she had died still remained shuttered, according to the witness This Is Reno spoke to. 

Washoe County spokesperson Bethany Drysdale disputed the source’s timeline. The children “briefly utilized the vacant building [on campus] while the investigation occurred,” she said. 

When asked for clarification on why the children were removed, Drysdale said, “The Kids Kottage program utilizes three buildings, and children are moved between buildings to meet their and the program’s needs. While children were moved during this event, this is a common programmatic move.” 

Drysdale, when pressed, said that at the time of the teen’s death, “Kids Kottage was not at full capacity, and the building in which she died was not shut down for a month; her room was closed for a couple of days during the investigation.” 

Drysdale refused to provide specific details on when the children were moved and how many were affected before directing inquiries to Chris Ciarlo, the spokesperson for Washoe County Human Services Agency. Ciarlo said HSA is “unable to release any further information regarding this incident due to the confidentiality, safety, and security of children at Kids Kottage.” 

They refused further comment but provided a statement by Human Services Agency Director, Ryan Gustafson: “This incident will not have a negative impact on the continual care the Kids Kottage staff daily provides children. Our mission at Kids Kottage has been and will continue to be how we can best serve Washoe County’s most vulnerable children.”

This Is Reno also made several public records requests regarding Kids Kottage and asked multiple agencies for any reports pertaining to abuse or neglect investigations at the facility. All of the requests were denied, and officials said the information was confidential due to the ages of children placed there. 

A former Child Protective Services provider, who asked to remain anonymous, said they weren’t surprised something like this occurred. Kids Kottage has had ongoing problems with adequate supervision for years, they alleged. 

“There is never enough supervision there,” the former CPS provider said. “But I don’t think it’s Kids Kottage’s fault by any means—I think it’s a bigger system problem.” 

According to data from the state’s Division of Child and Family Services Data Book published in August 2024, Washoe County has struggled to comply with a state plan requiring caseworkers to meet with clients at least once a month. The federal target for caseworkers in Washoe, Clark and rural counties is to meet this requirement at least 95% of the time, with compliance tied to federal child welfare funding. 

Washoe County has yet to reach that goal, with caseworkers meeting with clients monthly only about 90% of the time during the 2022-23 fiscal year and about 92% of the time during the 2023-24 fiscal year. 

The teen’s mother said she is expecting a full investigative report to be released on Oct. 6. Washoe County officials told This Is Reno they will not be commenting any further on the teen’s death—or the inconsistencies surrounding it.