Background: Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin (Google Maps). Insets display Janet Solis and Devin Berg (Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office).
A woman from Wisconsin has admitted to child neglect nearly a year after her newborn, just five days old, suffered skull fractures from a fall while she overdosed.
Janet Solis, aged 25, acknowledged her guilt on Monday to one count of child neglect. This stems from an incident almost a year ago when her five-day-old son fell on a tile floor in a hospital, while she overdosed. As per a criminal complaint referenced by Law&Crime, authorities were informed on November 4, 2024, about the newborn’s skull fractures. It was reported that Solis “overdosed on heroin” in the hospital, causing the baby to fall from the bed to the tile floor, where nursing staff at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, a suburb of Milwaukee, found him.
Devin Berg, Solis’ 25-year-old boyfriend, is also implicated as a party in this neglect case and is awaiting his trial, set for November 10.
Investigators discovered that Solis avoided prenatal care, fearing child protective services might get involved. She admitted to consuming marijuana and heroin during her pregnancy. A urine test administered at the hospital post-birth confirmed the presence of marijuana and fentanyl.
The baby “tested positive for cocaine, fentanyl, and THC and was suffering from withdrawal symptoms following his birth” on Oct. 29, 2024.
The suspicion of Solis and Berg using drugs at the hospital arose on November 3, when nurses checked on Solis at 9 p.m. The complaint indicates that Solis had left her baby unattended on her hospital bed to go to the restroom, later confessing to using heroin at that time.
Police said that when nursing staff checked on Solis on Nov. 4 at around 2 a.m., she was “unconscious and ‘unrousable’ on the hospital bed” while her newborn was on the floor underneath the bed next to a bottle. When the baby was examined, he was found to have “two linear fractures” of the skull. The hospital’s public safety staff conducted a search of Solis’ room and found a Ziploc bag containing “suspected cocaine or fentanyl” as well as “drug paraphernalia and three vape devices with suspected THC.”
Solis told police that she was a daily drug user and Berg, her boyfriend, was the person who supplied her with drugs several times during her hospital visit. When police interviewed Berg, he said that “he had no idea Solis was using drugs.” He also denied using drugs himself before eventually admitting that he and Solis were both daily drug users.
When asked about the baby falling from the bed, Berg told police “he was not at the hospital when (the infant) fell off the bed, but that he knew about it because Solis had called him and said that the nurses were being ridiculous about it,” according to the complaint.
Solis and Berg also have a 3-year-old daughter. It was not made clear who took custody of the children following their parents’ arrests.
Solis pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect causing great bodily harm on Monday. She was sentenced to two years in prison with four years of extended supervision.
