10-year-old recipient of ‘Kindness Award’ dies, loved ones say. Now, uncle is charged
Ivy Rayne Stowe was “full of life and love,” so it didn’t come as a surprise when the 10-year-old won a “Terrific Kid Award” at her South Carolina school, loved ones said.
But days before she was set to receive the award, her life was cut short. On Jan. 12, Ivy was rushed to a hospital and died from the “combined toxic effects of fentanyl and xylazine,” a drug used as an animal tranquilizer and sometimes called Tranq.
Now, months after the girl’s death, the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office said it made an arrest. The girl’s uncle, 25-year-old Zachary Taylor Mcclure, is charged with homicide by child abuse as deputies accuse him of bringing drugs into the home where he and his niece lived.
Deputies didn’t list attorney information for Mcclure in a March 28 news release.
“Investigators discovered Mcclure had been using fentanyl within the residence while in the child’s presence,” the sheriff’s office wrote. “Investigators believed the availability of the drug within the home contributed to the child’s death.”
Deputies reportedly started looking into Ivy’s death after being called to a report of an unresponsive child early Jan. 12. The girl went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at a hospital, the Greenville County Coroner’s Office wrote in a news release.
In a warrant, deputies said Mcclure knowingly committed “child abuse or neglect by bringing narcotics into the residence,” causing the 10-year-old to die from the combination of drugs. He was arrested and taken to jail.
Meanwhile, Ivy is remembered as a fourth grader who attended Taylors Elementary School, near Greenville. She was an “energetic participant in karate” and often was found near her Labrador retriever, according to a post on the Mackey Funerals and Cremations at Century Drive website.
“Ivy was full of life and love for her family and classmates. She received the ‘Kindness Award’ at Taylors Elementary for the loving kindness she showered on her classmates and everyone she met,” loved ones wrote in her online obituary, adding that she also was slated to be a recipient of the “Terrific Kid Award.”
The US opioid crisis
Overdoses are a leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2021, there were more than 51,000 overdose deaths in the country, according to CDC data. In the past 21 years, drug overdoses have killed more than 932,000 people, the CDC reported.
“The majority of overdose deaths involve opioids. Deaths involving synthetic opioids (largely illicitly made fentanyl) and stimulants (such as cocaine and methamphetamine) have increased in recent years,” the CDC said. “For every drug overdose that results in death, there are many more nonfatal overdoses, each one with its own emotional and economic toll.”
Millions of people in the U.S. have an opioid addiction, according to the CDC. Addiction is a “chronic and relapsing disease that can affect anyone.”
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