Thread: Santos Elena Ruiz Solano, Central Islip mother accused of killing newborn, held witho

Santos Elena Ruiz Solano, Central Islip mother accused of killing newborn, held without bail

Originally published: February 21, 2014 12:36 PM
Updated: February 21, 2014 10:22 PM
By BART JONES bart.jones@newsday.com


A housekeeper who prosecutors say murdered her newborn child was charged with second-degree murder and ordered held without bail following her arraignment Friday in First District Court in Central Islip. (Credit: News 12 Long Island


Santos Elena Ruiz Solano accused of killing her newborn

A housekeeper accused of killing her newborn daughter minutes after delivering her in a bathroom of her employer's West Islip house pleaded not guilty to a murder charge Friday, with her attorney saying the baby was stillborn.

Santos Elena Ruiz Solano, 26, was ordered held without bail on the second-degree murder charge at her arraignment before District Court Judge G. Ann Spelman in Central Islip.

Assistant District Attorney Glenn Kurtzrock said there was conclusive evidence that Ruiz Solano, of Central Islip, killed the child about 3 a.m. on Sunday.
"Her claim of course is that the baby was not born alive. That's completely controverted by the medical examiner's finding. The baby was alive, absolutely," Kurtzrock said after the arraignment.

"The baby had three skull fractures that would have been caused by at least one impact," Kurtzrock said. "When babies are born their skulls are very pliable, so to cause those fractures would have required a significant amount of force."

The death would not have been caused, he said, "by the baby simply falling, for example, or being dropped out of someone's arms."

But defense attorney Michael Brown said the baby was born prematurely and was stillborn. He said Ruiz Solano, a native of Honduras who has been in the United States for seven months after a journey across the border, did not receive appropriate medical care during her pregnancy -- partly because she was trying to hide the pregnancy.

Injuries to the baby's head may have come from the way in which she was born, Brown said. "When she is delivering the baby and the baby falls into, literally, the toilet bowl and the porcelain, that certainly would cause blunt force trauma," he told reporters.

"The child is born stillborn," he added. "That's not a murder charge."

Ruiz Solano's husband, Selvin Adonis Hernandez, denied his wife killed the child, saying she was not capable of such an act.

"She is very humble, very quiet," he said in Spanish, calling her a churchgoing woman who doesn't smoke or drink.

"She is good," Hernandez said. "She isn't a bad mother." The couple has two children in Honduras, a boy, 6, and a girl, 5, he said.

Kurtzrock said it was not clear what specifically caused the child's death in the Shoal Drive home where Ruiz Solano was a housekeeper and where she lived for most of each week. "There is no way of knowing if an object was used or if the baby's head was struck against an object," he said. "By the time the police looked at the bathroom, it had been cleaned up."

The case came to the attention of police after Ruiz Solano came to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore because of post-birth bleeding. Hospital staff soon suspected she had given birth.

Kurtzrock said Ruiz Solano had her husband bring two bags with them. "One of the bags she told her husband was garbage, and that he should throw it away -- and that was the bag the baby's body was in," he said.

He said the husband put it on top of a garbage pail at the hospital, but later he and the owner of the house where Ruiz Solano worked "became suspicious" and went out to check the bag. Inside, they found the child.

Hernandez denied that version of events, saying the police had misunderstood what he was saying and that the baby died by accident. He said he brought the bag with the baby into the hospital.

The prosecutor, defense attorney and Hernandez all said Ruiz Solano has told them she was raped at the start of the trip to the United States, an overland journey that both Kurtzrock and Hernandez said took about 45 days.

"We don't know if that is true or not, or if this baby is the genesis of that action," Kurtzrock said of the alleged rape. Police "are investigating that further. If anything, that would seem to provide a motive for what she did."
Brown said Ruiz Solano is devastated by the events.

"She's traumatized," he said. "But now she is facing the hammer of the criminal justice system. This is overwhelming for somebody who's only been here six months."

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/s...bail-1.7162577

So who is she working for in New York? have they been charged with anything like tax evasion?

"She is good," Hernandez said.

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CLUE: 'GOOD MOTHERS DO NOT MURDER THEIR BABIES'

The couple has two children in Honduras, a boy, 6, and a girl, 5, he said.

CLUE 2: Good mothers do not leave their young children behind!