St. Paul woman has been sentenced to 36 months for fentanyl death of 7-year-old daughter
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Shauntaija Jannell Travis was sentenced Friday to 36 months, with credit for 292 days served for the second-degree manslaughter of her 7-year-old daughter. She will serve her sentence at the Shakopee Women's Prison.
In March 2023, Travis' daughter died in the living room of a residence on the 800 block of Sherburne Avenue, according to a criminal complaint. The girl's cause of death was later identified as fentanyl toxicity and the manner of death was declared as accidental.
Officers searched Travis' bedroom and found a straw with "white residue," the complaint said, along with a pill that was later found to contain fentanyl.
At the time of the girl's death, Travis was in a custody battle over the child with other family members. Travis admitted to officers that she agreed to let her grandmother take custody of the victim so she could "get her life straightened out and get help from her drug addiction," the complaint said. The girl would've been in her grandmother's custody less than a week after the victim's death.
Travis originally pleaded not guilty to charges, but changed her plea to guilty in January.