A 26-year-old Española woman has been charged in connection with her 15-month-old daughter’s death from an apparent fentanyl overdose on April 1.
New Mexico State Police Agent Mario Villanueva charged Ariana Vigil with one count each of child abuse resulting in death and possession of a controlled substance.
If convicted, Vigil faces a sentence of up to life in prison on the child abuse charge.
In a statement of probable cause, Villanueva wrote that Vigil took her daughter to the Española Hospital on April 1 and told medical staff that the child, who was unresponsive, may have been exposed to fentanyl.
The girl, identified by the initials NGV, was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. State Police officers were first sent to the hospital at 11:38 a.m., a little over four hours earlier, Villanueva wrote.
Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo released Vigil on house arrest on April 3, and ordered her to submit to drug testing. Her next hearing is set for Thursday (4/10).
This is the second time parents have been arrested in Española the past few weeks for infants being exposed to, and overdosing on, fentanyl. Matthew Padilla, 34, and Caitlan Sanchez, 29, both of Española, were arrested on March 25 after their son appeared to suffer from an opiate overdose, although the child in that case appears to have lived.
Villanueva wrote that due to Vigil’s recklessness, the child died from being exposed to fentanyl.
“During the interview, Ariana stated she knowingly disposed of her used fentanyl foils in a plastic bag on the floor,” he wrote. “Ariana understood the dangers of fentanyl and the dangers of placing these used foils on the floor and did nothing to change her habits.”
The mother and child shared the same bedroom, the child could walk and therefore had “immediate access to the paraphernalia on the floor,” Villanueva wrote.
Changing story
Vigil allegedly changed her statement to State Police investigators multiple times, before and after she was read the Miranda Warning, including her right to remain silent, Villanueva wrote.
The last time she talked to investigators, she told them she uses tin foil to smoke fentanyl and snorts it in its powdered form and that she had a plastic bag on her bedroom floor where she would put the burnt foil after smoking at her West Calle Archuleta residence, he wrote.
“Ariana believed that NGV may have got the foil from that bag,” Villanueva wrote. “Ariana claimed that some of the burnt foils in the plastic bag were from approximately two weeks ago, and some were from recent uses. Ariana said on March 28, 2025, she purchased powder fentanyl and consumed some of it that night. Ariana said she used the remainder of the fentanyl on March 31, 2025.”
When agents searched the house, they found and seized burnt foil, a kitchen knife, a white powdery substance and burnt straws.
Inside her car, they found one burnt foil, according to court documents.
Villanueva wrote that they found burnt foil in her bedroom, a piece on her bed near a baby bottle and multiple burned foils on a counter near the nightstand.
A white rock, powdery substance was found on one of them.
In her first statement to investigators, she told them she placed the child on her front porch after finishing breakfast, in a small play area, went to get her cellphone and saw the child had a piece of tin foil in her mouth, rinsed her mouth, watched her for 10 minutes and then the child became non-responsive, and she drove her to the hospital.
She blamed her mother and her mother’s friends for the access to the fentanyl-laced foil in this initial account, Villanueva wrote.
She was then taken to the State Police office and read her Miranda rights and in this second interrogation, she said they were in the bedroom, she placed the child on the floor while she cleaned off the bed and when she bent down to pick her up, the child had a burnt piece of tin foil in her hand near her mouth and when she took it away, she saw it was wet.
In this version, she also rinsed out the girl’s mouth and took her to the hospital after she became unresponsive within 10 minutes.
The hospital was an estimated two minutes away, Villanueva wrote.