Michigan Woman Gets 8 Years in Jail for Injecting Nephew With Heroin

**Hannibal** · 11-30-06, 10:33 AM

Thursday , November 30, 2006

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — A suburban Detroit woman who admitted injecting heroin into her 12-year-old nephew and giving him and her 15-year-old niece heroin and cocaine was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Jacqueline Ellen Vuich, 26, pleaded guilty Nov. 2 to delivery of narcotics to a minor, first- and second-degree child abuse, maintaining a drug house and keeping a person younger than 16 in a home where prostitution occurred. She was sentenced Wednesday by Macomb County Circuit Judge Matt Switalski.

Vuich was visiting her mother, Jan Ruby Catton, on Jan. 24 in Warren when she injected her nephew with heroin as he ate dinner. He was treated for a heroin overdose at a Warren hospital.

Catton, 47, was charged with maintaining a drug house and a house of prostitution, and with second-degree child abuse. She pleaded no contest and was sentenced Wednesday by Switalski to two years' probation.

"She is probably not a good caregiver," Switalski said of Catton, who has lost custody of the eight grandchildren under her care.

"I am sorry," Catton said. "I tried to help."

Defense attorney Timothy Barkovic said Vuich's upbringing was a factor in her involvement in the incident. "All of this stemmed from the environment she grew up in," he told The Detroit News.