2 alleged drug dealers accused of murder for Santa Clara County baby’s overdose [Video]

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday announced prosecutors charged two alleged drug dealers with murder for their part in the fentanyl overdose death of 18-month-old Winter Doe.

The charges come five months after Winter’s parents, 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.

Prosecutors allege Phillip Ortega, 31, of Gilroy, and Paige Vitale, 32, of San Jose, provided Winter’s parents with a “steady supply of opioids and shared the drugs, while the baby girl wandered inside the drug-littered San Jose residence.”

In November 2023, Rayo was supposed to be arraigned but refused to come out of his cell. Richardson had not been located back then. 

Evidence shows that the pair left opioids and dirty drug paraphernalia in the open around the house where the baby could find them, prosecutors said. Evidence also showed that the two defendants consistently …