28°
The verified campaign raised $895 after it was posted on July 30, 2023.
"My name is Mousa Hawa I am asking for help to cover cost for my son Hunter Hawa," the campaign reads. "He passed suddenly 7/26/2023 we are having him cremated and then we will have a service for him(.)"
Hawa and Holly Back are each charged with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in Hunter's July 26 overdose death, the Chester County District Attorney's Office said this week.
Investigators said the 8-year-old had traces of fentanyl and cocaine in his system, and that analysis of his hair showed he had been exposed to the drugs prior to his overdose death.
Authorities also said Back and Hawa had Narcan — a potentially life-saving narcotic overdose treatment — in the home when their son died.
In a criminal complaint from Coatesville police, officials described "a history of drug use in proximity to the victim child and neglect of the victim child by defendants Back and Hawa."
The victim's brother said he "recalled living with defendant Back and Hawa and watching as defendant Hawa crushed pills and snorted them," police wrote.
"He described a living situation where both defendants would both be 'nodding out' regularly," detectives said in the affidavit.
In a review of the 8-year-old's medical history from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, doctors noted "several developmental delays that went (largely) unaddressed for the entirety of the victim's life."
When the county Department of Mental Health/Intellectual and Development Disabilities asked Back and Hawa "if they were interested in receiving early intervention services for the victim child," authorities said they did not respond to the request and that Hunter's case file was subsequently closed.
After he received a skeletal survey after receiving two head injuries in 2019, "staff indicated that they suspected child abuse," police wrote in the affidavit.
Hunter spent some time in the custody of an aunt after receiving the head injuries but "eventually returned to the care of both defendants without (Department of Children, Youth and Families) oversight," the criminal complaint says.
The aunt told police the last time she saw her nephew was at Easter dinner in 2023.
"(She) reported that the victim child said that defendant Hawa kept hitting him on his head," detectives wrote.
"As the parents and custodial guardians of the victim child, the defendants had a legal duty of care, protection and support for the victim child," authorities said in the affidavit.
"Instead, the defendants engaged in systematic reckless behavior involving their drug use and the victim child, choosing to use fentanyl and other illegal narcotics in the presence of the victim child and leave the packaging and remnants of these deadly substances in the immediate vicinity and within the immediate access of the victim child," police wrote.
Help for addiction is available through the Chester County Department of Drug and Alcohol Services.
Click here to follow Daily Voice East Berlin-York Springs and receive free news updates.
