The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged a San Jose man with the murder of Baby Phoenix – who overdosed two years ago on the opioids the dealer provided to the baby’s father.
Philip Ortega is already facing a murder charge for killing Baby Winter, another child who died of a drug overdose just three months after 3-month-old Phoenix was found dead.
A murder charge against David Anthony Castro, the father of Baby Phoenix, has now been added to felony child endangerment.
The murder charges now connect the two separate child fentanyl overdose cases that outraged the community and led to deep scrutiny and changes in the county’s practices of trying to protect children in abusive households.
Both Ortega, 33, and David Anthony Castro, Phoenix’s 40-year-old father, were arraigned on the new charges July 18 at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. Both defendants face life in prison if convicted.
“The senseless deaths of these two little girls broke our hearts yet hardened our determination to hold responsible the people whose recklessness killed them,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “The fact that the same man provided the fatal drugs that took the lives of Baby Phoenix and Baby Winter within a handful of months of each other is beyond shocking.”
Castro was originally charged with felony child endangerment for the May 13, 2023, death of his baby daughter whose body was found in an apartment littered with drug paraphernalia. An autopsy showed that Phoenix died from a lethal combination of methamphetamine and fentanyl.
New evidence shows that Castro sought and Ortega provided drugs to Castro the night before his daughter was found dead in the home.
Castro delayed calling for medical help for hours while he scrambled to get someone to bring him synthetic urine from a nearby smoke shop to hide his drug use.
Ortega also provided the deadly drugs that led to the death of Baby Winter just 91 days later.
On August 12, 2023, Winter’s parents waited more than 12 hours before calling 911 to report that their daughter was dead. Winter had 15 times the lethal amount of fentanyl in her blood. Derek Vaughn Rayo and Kelly Gene Richardson became the first in Santa Clara County’s history to be charged with murdering their own child with drugs.
