The Cincinnati Enquirer is devoting $5,000 of its 2018 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting as the first deposit to a memorial fund for Elliana Russ, the little girl featured in the news organization's winning special report, “Seven Days of Heroin.”
Elliana and her mother, Stephanie Gaffney, appeared in the story when they visited the neonatal abstinence clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The clinic cares for infants and babies exposed to opioids during pregnancy. Ten days after the July 13 interview, Gaffney, 28, died of an overdose of a fentanyl combination.
Beryl Love, editor of The Enquirer, said of the fund: "In a story full of sorrow, the moment we learn that Stephanie Gaffney died of an overdose was especially heartbreaking. We felt it only right to use a portion of the prize money to assist her young daughter, who so tragically became a central figure in 'Seven Days of Heroin.' "
In November, a Hamilton County judge granted custody of Elliana to Gaffney’s mother, Beth Arcail, and her husband, Joe, of the Clermont County town of Bethel. That odyssey led to the follow-up "Elliana's story," published Dec. 16.
“I don’t know what else to say except thank you,” Beth Arcail said last week when The Enquirer notified her about the memorial fund. "Everything that could be done for Elliana is very much appreciated. Elliana will know about everything, everything about you guys and what’s being done for her.”