A Louisiana mother put four bags of cocaine inside her 7-year-old son’s backpack by mistake and a teacher spotted the drugs when the woman went back to the school to retrieve them, according to authorities in Jefferson Parish.
According to NOLA.com, 25-year-old Mari Mejia-Zelaya admitted to investigators she had stashed four individual bags, each containing an ounce of cocaine, in her son’s backpack after confusing it with another backpack.
After realizing the mistake, she went to the school to check her son out, expecting the cocaine to still be in his backpack. The boy, however, had taken the bags out of his backpack and placed them in his classroom cubby, according to the report.
Discovering the cocaine was no longer in the backpack, Mejia-Zelaya instructed her son to go back into the school to retrieve the bags of cocaine, but a teacher saw the boy removing the bags and asked him about them.
The child responded they were “something his mommy had forgotten,” Det. Jeremy Budo testified during a hearing earlier this month, according to the outlet.
Investigators said Mejia-Zelaya had the other four bags of cocaine in her purse outside the school, but when law enforcement began to arrive, she tossed the purse under her vehicle and denied any knowledge of the cocaine.
But she ultimately confessed, telling investigators about the other four bags in her purse. She said she was holding the cocaine for someone else to earn some extra money, although no one else has thus far been charged in the case, according to NOLA.com.
Mejia-Zelaya was taken into custody and remains in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, held in lieu of $100,000 bond. Zelaya pleaded not guilty during her arraignment Tuesday.