In the hours after 12-year-old Eve Rogers was found dead in her Enfield home by her mother in March, police responding to the scene discovered “loose medication and/or vitamin pills” on the floor, in a pill organizer and elsewhere in the child’s room, according to documents.

A search of the other children’s rooms also yielded sightings of loose medication. When questioned about the use of medication, pill organizers given to the children and the use of allergy medicine and sleep aids, Eve’s mother, Melanie Federline, contradicted herself and her husband, Anthony Federline, and admitted to not being sure if her daughter had taken a sleep aid the night before, an arrest warrant states.

Although no one has been charged with her death, police arrested Melanie Federline last month for risk of injury to a child. Rogers’ stepfather, Anthony Federline, was also arrested shortly after the girl’s death and charged with sexual assault after police discovered evidence of an assault and his DNA on her body.

Since Melanie Federline’s arrest, details in the arrest warrant about loose pills and the use of allergy medicine in the home as a sleep aid have alarmed physicians and child welfare experts. They say that the careless way that Federline handled medications around Rogers and her siblings can serve as warning to parents and an opportunity to spread information about the potential dangers of medication as well as the use of antihistamines in kids.

Rogers died of “acute diphenhydramine, fluoxetine and bupropion intoxication,” according to the Office of the Medical Examiner, generic names for the antihistamine Benadryl and the antidepressants Prozac and Wellbutrin. The child had 23,000 nanograms per milliliter of diphenhydramine in her system, about five times the lethal dose, according to the warrant.

The cause of death is undetermined, meaning it was unclear if ingesting the lethal amount was accidental, or the result of a suicide or homicide.

“It’s heartbreaking when you see that a 12-year-old had died who deserved to be in a safe environment where she was growing up,” said Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, a physician and co-chair of the legislature’s Public Health Committee. “And while we worry about the sleep medications, literally every medicine has risks associated with it, so we need to have a comprehensive way of preventing accidental overdose of our children, not from Benadryl like in this case or sleep aids, but actually every medicine.”

A week prior to her death, Rogers had been picked up by police in the middle of the night after leaving her home without her parents’ knowledge and stealing a drink from a gas station. The incident prompted an investigation from the state’s Department of Children and Families.

Anwar said the information in the warrant on medication in the home raised questions about how thoroughly DCF had checked out the family home in the week preceding Rogers’ death.

Asked about whether there was a home visit this week, DCF referred The Connecticut Mirror to previous statements about their investigation that did not include that information.

The statements said, in part, that is it DCF’s policy and best care practice to interview all adults and children in the home and that “we spoke to all household members in-person and collateral contacts were made pertaining to the allegations in the 3/11/26 report. The investigation into that specific incident has been closed.”

The warrant for Melanie Federline’s arrest details a household in disarray, including “a trash can overflowing with old and moldy food, kitchen pans containing old food, bowls containing old milk and cereal on the first floor.”

In addition to the loose pills in Rogers’ room, there were “hundreds of used pill capsules with the medication removed, as well as loose, unused medications that were not stored in medication containers.” Dozens of sex toys were found in the home, including a vibrator in Rogers’ room which Melanie Federline said she purchased for her.

The warrant also noted that Federline should have reasonably noticed how quickly the supply of diphenhydramine sleep aid pills were diminishing, and given her daughter’s history of self-harm and suicidal thoughts, taken more care with how she handled the medication and followed medical advice from Rogers’ therapist.

The warrant says that Melanie Federline often gave Rogers Benadryl — the brand name for diphenhydramine — to sleep. Other medications like Lorazapam, Wellbutrin and Adderall were being used by Rogers or other household members, as well as a “Sleep Aid” medication and melatonin.

The warrant also described a complaint to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families in 2017 in which Melanie Federline said she gave her daughter NyQuil to “make her go to sleep,” something she did “often and did not consult a pediatrician.”

Melanie Federline also told Enfield police in March that Rogers sometimes took Benadryl for help sleeping.

Dr. John Brancato, director of emergency medicine at Connecticut Children’s Hospital, said that Benadryl should not be given to children as a sleep aid, and in recent years has not been recommended for use in children even to treat allergies because of its side effects.

“I think for many years, people would give their kids Benadryl because a dose of Benadryl is known to cause for many people some drowsiness. And it says so right on the bottle. The problem with it is that it’s not hard to overdose Benadryl, and it can be really pretty toxic,” he said.

A Benadryl overdose can cause hallucinations, agitation and seizures. Brancato said that in the last six months, Connecticut Children’s has seen around 40 kids who came in because of a Benadryl overdose.

“In the last couple of years there’s been a really big push for us from the standpoint of antihistamine use to encourage the use of much safer second generation antihistamines like cetirizine,” also known by its brand-name Zyrtec, which has the same allergy-treating benefits as Benadryl but with a better safety profile. Cold medicines are not recommended at all in kids under 2 years old.

Brancato said that many parents struggle to help their children sleep, but recommended they start with some adjustments to routines and behaviors, “lots of things that sound like common sense and yet people don’t always do them.” The list includes keeping screens away from kids before bedtime, eating earlier in the evening because an active metabolism can keep some kids up, and ensuring kids get plenty of fresh air and activity during the day so they are tired enough to sleep at night.

Brancato also advises parents to keep drugs out of the reach of children, even over-the-counter medications that are safe in small doses.

“I took care of a child many years ago in my training who died from liver from acetaminophen overdose,” or the generic name for Tylenol, a drug that he said is safe at the correct dose.

Many children’s medications also have flavorings to get children to take them, increasing risks of accidental overdose. Brancato said parents should consider putting medications in a lock box or at least in a place children can’t get to them.

“With increasing numbers of kids with mental and behavioral health problems, that’s a huge risk: to have things that are thought to be safe available in the house,” he said, not just for younger kids who may not understand what they are ingesting, but also for “kids who may actually be at risk for wanting to hurt themselves” by overdosing on drugs.

Child Advocate Christina Ghio, whose office investigates suspicious child deaths, echoed Brancato’s call for vigilance.

“We need to think about the fact that really any medication that is taken outside of what is the recommended dosage can be dangerous to children, and so we want parents to be aware of that reality, and to store their medications safely,” she said. “We know 16 kids a day, on average, go to the emergency room with self harm or suicidal ideation every day in Connecticut, and so if there’s something that’s accessible to them, that’s a risk, right? And we want to reduce risk as much as possible.”

Anwar said he hoped that Ghio would be able to get answers.

“That’s where the child advocate would have a better opportunity to find out if DCF had visited the home and what kind of an analysis they had. What was the risk assessment that they had identified in that case?” he said. “And while they were visiting and doing a site visit, did they actually see medications around? Was that documented? Was a warning given to the parent?”

It remains unclear what role access to medication played in Rogers’ death. But depending on what Ghio’s office finds, Anwar said there could be opportunities to pursue legislative solutions to act and create more safeguards for children in the future.