A 37-year-old Black Diamond, Washington, man is accused of using chloroform and acetone on his 13-year-old stepdaughter, prosecutors said.
On Oct. 12, investigators said a Black Diamond police officer responded to a report of CPR being performed on a 13-year-old girl who was unconscious and not breathing.
When the officer arrived at the scene, a woman at the home told the officer that her granddaughter wasn’t breathing and that her son was with her.
The officer saw the girl’s stepfather, Allen Bittner, next to the teen on the ground. The officer moved the teen onto her side and she started vomiting onto the floor.
Medics then arrived to treat the teen. She was later taken to Seattle Children's Hospital and admitted in pediatric intensive care on a breathing tube, prosecutors said.
According to charging documents, Bittner explained that “he had been giving his daughter a ‘breathing treatment’ and she had lost consciousness,” and he told the officer that he used a liquid that he had put on a cloth for her to inhale.”
The officer retrieved an empty bottle and the cloth, which appeared to be soaked with a liquid and had a very strong chemical solvent odor.
Bittner told the officer that the “breathing treatment” was a liquid chemical that he used when he was in the Navy to “open the airway and kill bacteria,” prosecutors said. He also mentioned that the teen had shortness of breath, was interested in singing and wanted to improve her breathing.
He told the officer that he used it for himself and that he got the chemical from a man who worked with him at Boeing, according to investigators. Bittner said he didn’t know what the chemical was or where the man had obtained it.
On Oct. 18, police received a report from the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab on tests done on the liquid from the bottle and the cloth.
According to prosecutors, it determined the presence of chloroform and acetone from both samples.
Charging documents said a search warrant was obtained for Bittner’s cellphone and laptop, and it was discovered that there were several internet searches about how to manufacture chloroform and the effects of it.
On Nov. 10, Bittner was arrested and later booked into the King County Jail. He was charged with second-degree assault, domestic violence.
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