Mom shared heroin with 12-year-old daughter

Rebecca Rachelle Hill told police she and her preteen daughter liked to do the same things.

Their shared interests included a heroin habit that left the 12-year-old so addicted she was hospitalized for drug withdrawal, according to felony charges against Hill. She told police she regularly gave the girl heroin and marijuana and brought her on shoplifting trips.

"I've been working narcotics for two years, and this was one of the worst ones I've dealt with," Bloomington Police detective Christopher Yates said. "I've seen cases with kids involved, but never where the mother was ever actually getting the kid high."

Hill, 37, is charged with three felonies, including child endangerment, second-degree drug sale and motor vehicle theft in an investigation that began Oct. 14 when she was arrested for shoplifting at the Mall of America with her daughter at her side. The next day the girl, who was placed in her father's care, told him she regularly smoked heroin and marijuana with her mother. She was hospitalized for withdrawal.

She has since been released, and is making progress in both therapy and school, her father said Monday outside the courtroom where Hill faced a judge for the first time since she was charged.

The father has petitioned for custody.

When Hill and her daughter were arrested at Macy's, Hill initially gave police a false name and said she was from California, according to the charges filed Friday in Hennepin County District Court. When police confirmed the name was fake, mother and daughter "began crying loudly and clinging to each other." Hill was later identified and the girl was released to her grandmother.

The next day, the girl's father called police and said his daughter told him that her mother had been supplying her with heroin and marijuana, and that the girl was "feeling terrible" and appeared to be in withdrawal. The girl was taken to the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital. Medical records showed she had both the drugs in her system, and that she told doctors that for the past two or three weeks, her mother had given her heroin to smoke three times a day.

The charges said Hill said her daughter "likes to do the same things that she does and that (she) 'most likely' uses heroin because she does." She added that she also used with her daughter to prevent her from getting sick from withdrawal.

They last used the drug Oct. 13, she said. She added that the two were homeless, staying "here and there" and occasionally sleeping in a stolen vehicle. The girl added that she was anxious, depressed and had been cutting herself.