With thousands of empty stamp bags strewn throughout the parents’ Munhall apartment — mixed in with donuts, cookies and their three children’s toys — it was a matter of if, not when, the fentanyl would harm the kids, a prosecutor said. "Day after day, week after week, room after room, those piles continued to grow,” Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Tom Kelly said Friday, as he made his case to a jury that James Kraft should be found guilty for killing his 2-year-old son, Robbie, who had fentanyl in his system. "Kraft didn’t throw them out. He didn’t lock the door. He didn’t store them somewhere safe,” Kelly said. "It was no accident, members of the jury. Addiction isn’t fair. But Robbie’s life — and death — in that house wasn’t fair.” In his closing argument, Kelly urged the jury to convict Kraft, 41, of third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of children. Less than five hours later, the jury did just that, finding Kraft guilty on all counts. Kraft, who on Wednesday was ejected by the judge from the courtroom for repeatedly refusing to cooperate or listen, never returned. The jury rendered its verdict without him. On May 12, 2022, police were called to the family’s apartment on Margaret Street in Munhall about 1:30 a.m. for the report of a child who was unresponsive. They found Robbie Kraft, who died about 12 hours later from fentanyl toxicity. At trial this week, the prosecution presented body camera footage from one of the first officers on the scene. The video and additional images showed deplorable conditions, including mounds of garbage stacked around the living room and thousands of empty heroin stamp bags. In an interview with investigators, Kraft told them he was a drug addict and that he kept the stamp bags so he could ingest the residue. A month later, Kraft and Robbie’s mother, Paige Hufnagel, 31, were both charged with criminal homicide. She is scheduled to plead guilty on Sept. 16. Kraft was also offered a plea deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangerment, but he turned it down. The trial featured testimony from the couple’s now-6-year-old son. The boy told the jury that Robbie died after drinking something out of a small cap, which a detective testified is used by addicts to ingest heroin. There was also testimony that Robbie’s brother experienced his own symptoms of ingesting fentanyl 12 hours after police were called to the apartment. During his closing argument, defense attorney Kelvin Morris told the jurors they couldn’t be sure that the stamp bags in the home belonged to his client. "Who left what stamp bags out?” Morris said. "We don’t know the answer. We can’t blame James Kraft solely for that.” Morris also questioned how Robbie’s brother became ill from fentanyl toxicity when Kraft wasn’t at the house at that time. "We don’t know because it hasn’t been answered,” he said. Jurors had to weigh whether to convict Kraft of third-degree murder, which is a killing with malice, or involuntary manslaughter, a death that results from recklessness or gross negligence. Morris told the jury that there was no malice in the case. He urged the jurors to use common sense and consider the images in the apartment. He compared them to his client’s scattered thoughts. In his closing, Kelly told the jury that the case easily met the prosecution’s burden for involuntary manslaughter. "Stamp bags, needles, caps — they were everywhere. In the toys, in the beds, everywhere.” But, Kelly continued, "this case is more than that. This case is third-degree murder.” To prove that charge, he said, the prosecution had to convince the jury that Kraft’s actions showed willful or wanton disregard for an unjustified and extremely high risk. "His addiction, while it wasn’t fair, doesn’t absolve his choices,” Kelly said. "His actions rise to the level of malice.” Kraft will be sentenced by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer Satler on Oct. 28. He faces a mandatory penalty of at least 15 to 30 years in prison on the murder count. Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2019 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of "Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com. Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free. Get Ad-Free > Sign Up for NotificationsStay up-to-date on important news from TribLIVE