WEST CALN >> A West Caln woman and her boyfriend have been accused by authorities of supplying her 14-year-old daughter and another teenager with heroin and helping them get high, the woman at times injecting both of the teens with the drug.
Jessica Lynn Riffey, of Telegraph Road, Honey Brook was arrested on Thursday and charged with felony endangering the welfare of children, as well as corruption of minors, recklessly endangering another person, and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, all misdemeanors.
Riffey – whose daughter told investigators that her mother had used the drawstring from a hooded sweatshirt to make her veins pop out so as to better inject the heroin with a syringe that was supplied by her mother’s boyfriend, Jameson C. Burn – is currently being held on $50,000 cash bail in Chester County Prison awaiting a preliminary hearing.
Burn, a Berks County man with a long criminal history that involved substance abuse, has not yet been taken into custody and arrested, although police have issued a warrant for his arrest on drug delivery charges. He was supposed to have surrendered at District Court in Honey Brook Monday afternoon, but failed to appear. He is listed as a fugitive.
Riffey’s arrest was announced Monday by Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan and West Caln Police Chief Curt Martinez.
Said Hogan, “Supplying anyone with heroin is a potential death sentence. Injecting children, including your own daughter, with heroin demonstrates a depravity that defies belief.”
Martinez added that his department, along with the Chester County Detectives, “worked diligently and swiftly to unravel this disturbing crime. The children are now safe and we will continue to investigate.”
According to a press release issued Monday, on Thursday West Caln Sgt. Christopher Fries responded to Riffey’s home for a well-being check on a 14-year old girl. Police discovered both the girl and a 16-year old boy. Fries identified the girl as Riffey’s daughter, but she is not named in the criminal complaint, nor is the youth.
Both teenagers reported that Riffey, 34, began supplying them with heroin in August and September.
In interviews with county Detectives Gerald Davis and James Ciliberto, both with the county’s Child Abuse Unit, the teenagers said that Burn had given the heroin to Riffey. At times, the two would inhale the drug from the top of a table located at the foot of the bed in Riffey’s bedroom, according to the arrest affidavit.
Other times, Riffey would inject the heroin directly into the teenagers’ arms.
Her daughter said that the injections had occurred two or three times in September. The youth said that Riffey would “cook” the heroin in a spoon with water, then draw the liquid into a syringe that Burn had purchased at a nearby Walmart through a cotton ball. The youth said Riffey had injected him twice. The boy also said he had watched Burn – a 33-year-old ex-convict who had been released from state prison after serving a 3 1/2 to eight year sentence for assault – shoot heroin himself.
When interviewed by Davis and Fries on Thursday, Riffey admitted to administering heroin to both the teenagers, sometime between July and September, according to the affidavit.
“Heroin is a dangerous drug that is invading our society at every level,” Hogan said in his release. “We will continue to deal harshly with drug dealers who are pushing this poison out to children and addicts. Anybody who downplays the threat of heroin or coddles heroin dealers is inviting disaster into our community.”
Anybody with information about the case should contact West Caln police at 610-384-3115 or Chester County Detectives at 610 344-6866. Prosecutor Megan King from the Child Abuse Unit has been assigned to prosecute this case.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
