Mother charged in 2017 poisoning death of Hamilton child

Hamilton Police say a four-year-old boy who died two years ago was poisoned and they’ve charged the child’s mother with manslaughter.

Police say 39-year-old Lisa Strickland was arrested Wednesday in Newfoundland, where she’d gone to give birth to another child last fall, after the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society had signalled its intention to apprehend the newborn.

Strickland faces a charge of manslaughter after toxicology tests found a lethal dose of drugs within the system of four-year-old Kane Driscoll, who was found dead in a home on the east mountain on Sept. 27, 2017.

Investigators say Kane was born with a number of medical issues that resulted in several major operations and many months of hospitalization, but by the time of his death he had recently started junior kindergarten.

Police say their initial investigation showed no signs of foul play, but the toxicology tests were ordered as a matter of protocol in sudden deaths.