The Tragic Death of Kadie Tafta
Kadie Tafta was 8 years old.
With her big brown eyes, a sly smile and short chestnut hair, she looked like a “tomboy,” her grandmother said.
She loved “Peppa Pig,” “Hello Kitty” and her Super Mario backpack. When her classmates teased her that Super Mario was for boys, Kadie was sad, but never stopped wearing the backpack.
Kadie lived just off Glenwood’s Town Square with her mom, Misty Frazier, her little sister, Cinda Lu, and her grandparents, James and Cinda Frazier, in a big house with lots of trees on a shaded lot on Walnut Street. Her home wasn’t far from her school and the playground she loved.
A class clown, her smile and out-going personality are the first things many people remember about the West Elementary third grader.
But all things were not perfect in Kadie’s life.
Her mother and the father were estranged. She rarely saw or spoke to her father, John Tafta, according to her grandparents. Kadie also was developmentally-delayed and had behavioral issues. She had been diagnosed with bi-polar and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), for which she was prescribed multiple medications.
On the night of Oct. 19, 2016, Kadie had what was believed to be a seizure that sent her to the emergency room for the second time in less than a month.
Kadie never came home from the hospital.
She was pronounced dead at Jennie Edmundson Hospital that night, but Cinda said her granddaughter took her last breath in Grandma’s arms on the steps of their home waiting for the ambulance.
Kadie’s ashes are kept on a high shelf in the Frazier’s home, not far from her old bedroom and a wall of photos of her and her family. The family, who had only moved to Glenwood a few months earlier, couldn’t bring themselves to bury Kadie in the Glenwood Cemetery and chose cremation to keep her close.
“If we buried her here, she’d be all alone if we moved,” said Grandpa James.
Kadie’s short and sad story might have ended there were it not for a joint investigation by the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation and the Glenwood Police Department.
On Sept. 11, nearly a year after Kadie’s mysterious death – with no known cause of death released to the family or the public – charges were leveled and an arrest made.
A medical examiner’s report revealed Kadie died of a prolonged ingestion of a lethal dose of amitriptyline, a powerful antidepressant.
Investigators allege the individual who gave Kadie the medication is Misty Frazier, Kadie’s mother.
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A Troubled Life From Birth
Born Kathleen Marie Tafta to Misty Frazier-Tafta and John Tafta July 28, 2008, “Kadie,” as she was called by most everyone that knew her, lived a troubled life almost from birth. Her mother and father never seemed to get along. Fighting, often times resulting in physical altercations between the two were common, with Kadie stuck in the middle.
“It was a bad situation between two knuckleheads,” said James of his daughter and Tafta’s rocky marriage.
By the time baby sister Cinda Lu came along, it was obvious Kadie had developmental issues.
Kadie didn’t speak until she was 3 years old. When she did speak, the words were sometimes garbled and unintelligible. She often would resort to sign language to communicate. So much so her grandparents took to calling her “Peck-Peck” for her propensity to “peck” her open palm signifying when she was hungry.
In school she was a step behind other students. She never seemed to catch up. Testing when she was 6 showed she had an IQ of 65. Kadie’s mother also struggled with psychological problems of her own much of her life. Misty was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder – a mental illness combining bi-polar and schizophrenia – and borderline personality disorder as a child.
After an ugly court battle, with accusations of abuse and restraining orders filed by both sides, Misty was awarded full custody of Kadie following the divorce. Kadie saw her father on only a few occasions since 2011 and rarely ever spoke to him on the phone.
“She wouldn’t talk to him,” Cinda said. “He never sent her one birthday card or Easter card or birthday present.”
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‘Good days and bad days’
Kadie, her sister, mother and grandparents moved to Glenwood from Carter Lake in early September 2016.
“She was out-going and like most kids she would have her good days and her bad days,” Cinda said. “But she was always thoughtful. If she fought with her sister, she’d go cry for a few seconds then immediately go make up with her.”
After some issues with bullying at her school in Carter Lake, Kadie had fit in and was doing well by all accounts at West Elementary, Cinda said.
“They picked on her because of her Mario book bag,” Cinda said of her granddaughter. “The kids told her a Mario bag was for boys and it upset her. I told her not to worry about it, ‘You like what you like, they like what they like.’ She just kept on wearing it to school.”
When asked about Kadie’s behavioral issues, Cinda bristles. She was slow, she said, but “not stupid.”
“Sometimes kids didn’t want to play with her. She didn’t care. She’d do her own thing here,” Cinda said.
Kadie could be a difficult child, Cinda and James do admit.
Her grandparents said she often struggled with following directions, controlling her emotions and going to sleep. She would lash out for seemingly no reason and sometimes claim to see things that weren’t there.
Kadie had been on a half dozen different medications, among them Ritalin, Vyvanse, Zoloft and Seroquel. Her grandparents agreed none of the psychotropic cocktail she was prescribed over the years seemed to help.
“None of it worked like it should, I thought,” James said. “They didn’t seem to have an effect on her. She could be a handful.”
The warning signs that Kadie’s medications weren’t working were there.
On Sept. 29, 2016, Kadie was lying in her bed when her eyes rolled back in her head and her body began to twitch and convulse.
“Misty screamed and said, ‘Mom, there’s something wrong with Kadie,” Cinda said.
Kadie had suffered an apparent seizure.
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Amitriptyline Reaction
According to affidavits filed in Mills County District Court, an ambulance was called to the Frazier home that evening at 9:12 p.m. Kadie was taken to Jennie Edmundson Hospital in Council Bluffs for evaluation. There Misty told doctors she had given Kadie a 100 mg amitriptyline tablet around 4 p.m. and laid her down. Misty lied to doctors and told them Kadie had been prescribed the amitriptyline by another doctor about a month earlier. Once Kadie was stabilized, it was determined she did not suffer a seizure and her reaction was likely related to the amitriptyline.
Doctors advised Misty to reduce the amitriptyline dosage to 50mg and Kadie was sent home. Kadie spent the next day at home, resting.
“She was scared. We were all scared,” said Cinda, who stayed up all night watching over Kadie.
It’s unclear why hospital staff did not follow up with social services or confirm Misty’s account of Kadie’s prescription.
On Oct. 19, just 20 days after her visit to the emergency room, Kadie suffered another seizure. A Glenwood Rescue squad arrived at the Frazier home shortly before 7 p.m. to find Kadie unresponsive. She was taken once again to Jennie Edmundson Hospital.
At 8:14 p.m., Kadie Tafta was pronounced dead.
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Kadie’s Mother Charged In Death
On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 327 days after Kadie’s death, investigators from the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, assisted by the Glenwood Police Department, knocked on the Fraziers’ door.
James answered.
They were looking for Misty.
Misty and her mother had walked to the bank to cash a check.
Investigators left the home and encountered Misty and Cinda nearby.
“They pulled up and asked if she was Misty Frazier,” Cinda said. “They said they just wanted to talk and then they arrested her.”
Cinda said her daughter broke down sobbing and had to be assisted into the back of an unmarked squad car.
Misty was booked into the Mills County Jail where she remains. She was officially charged with child endangerment resulting in death, a Class B felony, and distributing a drug to a minor without a prescription, a Class C Felony. She is being held on a $35,000 cash only bond.
A message left for Mills County Attorney Naeda Elliott was not returned.
Misty had been in trouble with the law before, James said. A review of her criminal record in Iowa shows a history of mostly minor run ins with the law, dating back to the 1990s.
Misty will be arraigned Oct. 2. She is represented by Council Bluffs attorney Abby Davison.
A message seeking comment from Davison went unreturned.
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Investigation Began In November
The investigation into Kadie’s death began almost immediately.
On Nov. 15, special agent Dan Dawson of the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, along with Jennifer Babbitt, a child protective worker with the Iowa Department of Human Services, questioned both Misty Frazier and Cinda Frazier at the Glenwood Police Department.
In her interview, Misty told investigators Kadie had been prescribed amitriptyline but that after “a bad reaction,” she threw the prescription away. Misty also stated only she and Cinda ever gave Kadie her medications.
Cinda confirmed to investigators that only she and Misty administered Kadie her meds but Cinda also disclosed she cannot read and that Misty set the pills out Kadie needed and Cinda would watch to make sure she ingested them. Cinda also told investigators she had a prescription for amitryptyline.
Later that same day, investigators executed a search warrant at the Frazier home at 502 N. Walnut St. The search turned up no medications prescribed to Kadie.
But the search did yield multiple other bottles of medications prescribed to other family members, including a bottle of 100mg amitriptyline prescribed to Cinda Frazier.
Four weeks later, Babbitt spoke again with Misty, this time at the Frazier residence. There Babbitt confronted Misty about the amitriptyline and asked why investigators could find no record of Kadie ever being prescribed the medication.
Misty began to cry and then broke down. She admitted to Babbitt she had been giving Kadie amitryptyline pills from an old medication and that she threw those pills and all of Kadie’s medications away following her daughter’s death.
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A Powerful Antidepressant
In the filings against Misty, the report narrative says Misty “knowingly acted in a manner that created a substantial risk to K.T.’s (Kadie is referred to as K.T. in official reports) physical safety by giving her non-prescribed amitriptyline pills over a prolonged period of time which subsequently caused toxic blood levels and resulted in death.”
Amitriptyline, the drug that investigators say killed Kadie, is a commonly prescribed but very powerful tricyclic antidepressant for those suffering from depression, insomnia and nerve pain. It’s not uncommon for it to be prescribed to children but only on rare occasions.
James, Kadie’s grandfather, said Misty was on the medication at one time but couldn’t recall when.
Both James and Cinda said they don’t know where Misty got the amitriptyline but both admitted to having taken the antidepressant in the past.
“I mean I guess she could have stole it from me or Cinda because we take it but she said it came from an old bottle,” James said. “And we don’t have any old bottles of amitriptyline lying around.”
James also recalled an incident he shared with DCI investigators following Misty’s arrest. In that incident, which he said occurred about four years ago while the family was living in Carter Lake, he witnessed Misty giving Kadie a pill from a bottle he later found out to be amitriptyline.
“I don’t know for sure that was what she gave her but I was pretty sure it was and I told her, ‘You can’t be giving a child adult strength medication,’” James said. He later threw the medication away. “I thought she stopped then but obviously she didn’t.”
James wants it known he knows what his daughter did was wrong and she should be punished, he said. But he’s adamant, Misty loved Kadie and never meant to hurt her own daughter.
“She was a good kid,” James said of Kadie. “She had her mental problems but she could be sweet as hell at times. And then she could be real ornery as hell at times, too. It’s sad. But there was no intent on Misty’s part to hurt her. I think that’s why it took so long for them to charge her.”
James said family had tried for months to get a copy of the coroner’s report but to no avail.
Deputy State Medical Examiner Dr. Johnathan G. Thompson of the Iowa Office of the Medical Examiner did release his full autopsy report April 28. Thompson’s report notes Kadie’s death as being caused by “amitriptyline/Nortriptyline” but the manner of death is undetermined.
The affidavit indicates Thompson told investigators to achieve the toxicity levels found in Kadie’s system, she had to have received the amitriptyline “regularly over a long period of time.”
Both Dawson and Babbitt did not reply to interview requests.
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‘She didn’t mean to kill her’
James and Cinda aren’t sure how long Misty had been giving the amitriptyline to Kadie but both agree their daughter’s intentions were good.
“She didn’t mean to kill her,” Cinda said. “She didn’t do it to get back at her husband, Kadie’s father. She didn’t have life insurance. She didn’t want to hurt her. She wanted to help her.”
A review of Kadie’s Medicaid records revealed she was not receiving any amitriptyline medications as of Sept. 29, 2016, and that she had never been prescribed the medication, contrary to what her mother told doctors that day in the hospital.
As of Friday, Cinda and James had yet to see their daughter since her arrest.
Inmates at the Mills County Jail cannot receive visitors for the first seven days. They have spoken to her on the phone briefly on a few occasions.
“She cries,” Cinda said of how the conversations with her daughter have gone.
“She cries when we answer, she cries when they tell her her time is up,” James said. “She cries when we put Cinda Lu on the phone.”
James didn’t know how his daughter planned to plea at her Oct. 2 arraignment. If she is convicted, James said, he doubts his daughter will get a long jail sentence because of her mental state and her lack of intent.
“I think five or six years, which is a pretty long time,” James said. “It won’t replace Kadie, but she’ll be punished.”
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Kadie missed by her sister
The death of Kadie was perhaps most tough on her sister.
Cinda Lu is 8 now, the same age as Kadie when she died. She asked to release a balloon with Kadie’s name on her sister’s birthday in July.
“She asked if Kadie could see it in Heaven,” Cinda said. “I told her of course she can see it.”
Cinda Lu was at school when Misty was arrested. Her grandmother tried to explain but the 8-year-old doesn’t understand, she said.
“She just wants to see her mom,” Cinda said. “She cries a lot and she’s scared, I think.”
Cinda’s eyes well up when she talks about her granddaughter, her “Kadie-koo” as she affectionately called her. She can still feel Kadie nestle into her arms in her favorite chair, watching TV and doting on her grandmother when her COPD would act up in coughing fits.
“You O.K., grandma?” Kadie would ask.
James and Cinda said they agreed to speak with The Opinion-Tribune to set the record straight. They were upset by Kadie’s father’s television interviews last week and his comments on social media alleging Misty intentionally tried to kill Kadie and suggesting she should be charged with murder.
“He don’t know,” Cinda said. “He’s never saw Kadie and he shouldn’t be saying that stuff.”
James and Cinda said they last saw Kadie’s father at the funeral last year. They have not spoken to him since Misty’s arrest and don’t plan to.
“I sleep with her picture by my bed,” Cinda said of her favorite photo of Kadie, her school picture shot in the spring of 2016. “I say every night before bed, ‘I love you Kadie,’ and she can hear her Grandma. My Kadie-Koo. I lost my granddaughter and there’s no bringing her back. Now I’ve lost my daughter.”