Missing and Murdered Children

Most parents encourage their children to do well in school, as well as in life. They try to show by example and teaching the right way to live in this society. If a child needs help with homework and parent will usually make an effort to sit with that child and help get them through the assignment.

Things do become more difficult when children enter the teen years. Sometimes tempers flare and teens often think they know more than their parents. In the case of Steven and Vincent Alfano it can be said that barely 15-year-old Vincent knew more than his father did about life. But Steven did not want to teach Vincent about how to live life the right way; he wanted to teach Vincent how to party the right way.

Police allege and they have Steven Alfano on tape admitting to two friends of his son Vincent that he not only supplied his son with the drugs that killed him, he also showed him how to crush up the pills and snorted the deadly powder with him. He is heard on the tape telling the friends he wanted to teach Vincent how to party right.

I am going to guess that Vincent was not new to abusing drugs or if not, at least he hung around in that type of crowd. I am only saying this because the two friends who came forward to police after their friend's death told police they had previously bought prescription drugs from Steven Alfano.

On the fateful day (June 27) that Vincent lost his life to an accidental drug overdose, records show police were called to the Alfano residence for a  person in medical need. When they arrived they found Steven Alfano in the home and the body of his son Vincent in his bedroom. Steven indicated he had found his son non-responsive, tried CPR and called for help. The help was too late and 15-year-old Vincent was pronounced deceased. He had just celebrated his 15th birthday on June 9.

Toxicology reports revealed Vincent had six types of drugs in his system, according to the medical examiner's office. They included painkillers such as Oxycodone (Sold under the trade names Percodan and Oxycontin), Hydrocodone (trade name Vicodin),  and Methadone (trade names,Dolophine, Amidone, Methadose, Physeptone, Heptadon) and a form of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

Any one of those drugs could have proven fatal to Vincent Afano. But the mode of ingestion and the combination was too much for a 15-year-old's central nervous system to tolerate. The area of his brain charged with making him breath simply shut down because all of the above named drugs act on the central nervous system. They are central nervous system suppressants. ¹

Some may say what was Steven Alfano thinking? The truth is he was not thinking clearly. You see, the medications found at the home, which Steven first tried to say were prescribed for him and kept under lock and key, well that was not true. Police say there were hundreds of pills within reach. Also, Steven Alfano has a lengthy criminal record including assault on a police officer and several DUI convictions. I wonder why this child was living with his father.

Alfano was charged with third-degree murder, which according to Florida statute can occur when the killing of a person "resulted from the unlawful distribution" of narcotics. He was also charged with one count of child abuse. He was being held without bail Friday at the Hernando County Jail. Authorities said Alfano obtained the many kinds of pills by giving false information to pharmacists. He was charged with withholding information from a medical practitioner, according to an arrest affidavit.²

I certainly hope they throw the book at this poor excuse for a parent.

Sources:

1. Central Nervous System Depressants, University of Maryland Medical Center, August 2008. [↩]
2. Michal Sanserino, Father Charged with Third-degree Murder in Son's Fatal Overdose, St. Petersbug Times, August 3, 2008. [↩]