The case of a Boulder City father arrested recently for the tragic death of his 8-month-old infant in November 2022 has caught the media’s attention because of new information that the accused, Jeffrey Terakami, had a prior child neglect charge.

According to a criminal complaint and court documents shared by News 3, Terakami had in 2021 left his partner Kara Dugan’s one-year-old child unattended in his car while he “went inside a Dotty’s casino to gamble for 20 to 30 minutes.”

While this child survived, Ryot Terakami, the infant identified by the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner (CCOCME), wasn’t so lucky.

?it took “several months to get the toxicology report back from the crime lab”

The reason Terakami and Dugan weren’t arrested until months after Ryot’s death, explained Boulder City Police Lt. Thomas Healing, was that it took “several months to get the toxicology report back from the crime lab.” The CCOCME’s autopsy revealed that Ryot’s death was “a result of fentanyl toxicity” and another significant condition of “recent methamphetamine exposure.”

Under BCPD questioning, both parents said Terakami had spilled a meth-fentanyl mix onto their bed, which Ryot then “crawled onto.” If convicted of second degree murder as charged, Terakami and Dugan could spend ten years to life in prison.