NEW MOTHER WHO BATTLED TO KICK DRUG ADDICTION CHARGED IN INFANT SON'S DEATH

RIVIERA BEACH -- Melanie Hayward clung to her unborn son through
addiction, arrest and the promise of rehab. After release from jail
in September, she became the poster child for a new drug treatment
program, clutching her newborn lovingly while she posed for a camera.

On Monday afternoon she clutched him again, but this time police say
the infant was blue-skinned and still. After dropping out of rehab
and relapsing into drug use, investigators say Melanie had smothered
her 2- month-old son in her sleep.

The boy, Jalin, was pronounced dead at St. Mary's Medical Center.
Melanie, 23, was arrested on a charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child.

His death was a devastating twist for Melanie and a wrenching one for
Gratitude House, a West Palm Beach drug-rehabilitation center that
made her the first participant in a rare new program for addicted
mothers with newborns.

Hooked on crack cocaine and still in jail, Melanie had fretted all
summer for her unborn son, worrying she would give birth to the boy
while still behind bars, and that she would have to give him up.

But she was allowed to leave jail for Gratitude House and gave birth
four days later. She and Jalin slept with a handful of other pregnant
women in a room with four beds and four cribs.

In September, The Palm Beach Post featured Melanie and her son in a
story about the new program.

"I was having to think about giving him up for adoption when I was in
jail," Melanie told the Post at the time. "Thank God I didn't have
to. I got to keep my child and I was clean."

The state Department of Children and Families had been investigating
Melanie but closed its case after she was admitted into the
rehabilitation program.

Officials say Gratitude House was supposed to notify DCF if she and
the child ever left. A supervisor at Gratitude House would not say
Monday whether that notification took place when Melanie dropped out
last week. DCF is reviewing the death.

Melanie told police that she left Gratitude House last week after
fighting with a roommate and being told she might be transferred and
separated from her son.

She called her mother, Cynthia Hayward of Riviera Beach, and asked
her to take her home.

Cynthia brought Melanie and Jalin back to her rooming house at 1036
W. 31st St., where the three shared a bed. Last weekend, Melanie
disappeared and left Cynthia to care for the baby.

She returned early Monday morning after spending the weekend drinking
and using cocaine, according to an arrest report. She was asleep when
Cynthia left for work Monday morning.

Monday evening, Cynthia rode a bus home and knocked on the apartment
door. No one answered, so she knocked again.

Melanie woke up and screamed. When she was let in, Cynthia saw her
holding Jalin, police say. He was stiff, and his eyes and lips were blue.

Cynthia ran outside, screaming for someone to call 911.

Infant deaths in adult beds started receiving more attention locally
since 2002, when at least 10 babies in Palm Beach County and two in
Martin County were smothered or died of other accidental causes in beds.

The Palm Beach County medical examiner at the time was so concerned
that she asked county health officials to publicize the problem.
State officials later launched an awareness campaign across Florida.

For Melanie, a crack addict, the issue was a consequence of her
stubborn drug addiction. Police believe she rolled over on her son in
a drug-induced haze.

Melanie said she had been doing crack for three years.

"I started going to clubs, drinking, snorting powder and it
progressed," she told the Post in September.

She had been arrested eight times in Florida before Monday, including
on charges of vehicle theft, drug possession and prostitution.

Since her latest stint in jail, she said, she had become consumed
with her son. She cried at the thought that she would have had to
give him up if she remained behind bars.

She named him Jalin on a lark. The name just popped into her head one
day, she said. She spelled it differently to make him feel special, different.

During an interrogation after Jalin's death, Melanie came clean to
investigators. During the weekend, she said, she shot up a gram of
cocaine and smoked crack cocaine. Police found a crack pipe in her purse.

She said she had been groggy Monday and didn't remember things that
had happened since she came home, according to the arrest report.

When she was booked into the county jail her blond hair was frazzled.
Her blue eyes were puffy. She is being held there without bond.

"This was my fault," she told police, over and over again.