Steven A. Siegel

PARKERSBURG – A man charged with the death of a child in March 2020 has been returned to Wood County to be charged, the Parkersburg Police Department said.

Officials went to the Trumbull Correctional Institute on Wednesday, where Steven A. Siegel, 31, of Parkersburg, was jailed on unrelated Washington County charges of obtaining stolen property, illegally possessing a firearm and failing to show up.

Siegel was charged by the Wood County Grand Jury in September 2020 with child neglect that resulted in death and maintaining an apartment for the storage of a controlled substance.

The investigation began in March 2020 when police, along with fire and ambulance services, responded to an apartment on Kanawha Street where an 18-month-old child was unresponsive. The child was taken to the hospital and later pronounced dead, the department said.

Detective JO Bell’s investigation revealed that Siegel lived with the child’s mother, Michelle D. Cyrus, at the Kanawha Street residence. A search of the residence revealed evidence of drug use in the apartment, and during a subsequent interview with Cyrus, she admitted that fentanyl was used illegally at the residence, the department said.

An autopsy by the West Virginia State Medical Examiner found the child’s cause of death to be fentanyl and nicotine poisoning, police said.

Cyrus pleaded guilty in Wood County Circuit Court on November 17 of neglecting children which resulted in death. She was sentenced to three to 15 years in prison on February 11, with a sentence of 196 days, police said.

Siegel has been processed at the police department and placed on $ 300,000 bail at the Wood County Holding Center pending charges in the district court, the police department said.

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