Nine-month-old baby Milton Rojas died of an overdose, it has been ruled, and two caregivers are under arrest after it was determined the baby had been injected with cocaine and heroin just prior to his death.
24-year-old Oscar Sanchez-Rivera and 27-year-old Viameri Santana-Berrios have been charged with murder after the July 2011 death of Rojas, and disturbing information regarding the boy’s death has come to light in the months since he was found naked and unresponsive on a towel after a 911 call.
Following Rojas’ death, a medical examiner likened the amount of substances found in the little boy’s drug stream as comparable to that of a drug mule, or in street parlance, someone who imports street drugs for the use of several users.
Further, paramedic Dale Schroder was on the scene, and Schroder told the court that Rojas had “track marks” (slang for the needle puncture sites characteristic of heavy drug users) all over his little body, including on his stomach and feet.
British paper the Daily Mail recounts Schroeder’s testimony at a hearing following the baby’s death, and the testimony describes damning evidence heard in court:
“The child was cool to the touch, pale, and unresponsive, and Schroeder’s said his efforts failed to revive the child… Schroeder said he and his partner took the child to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, where he was pronounced dead.
“At the hospital, the paramedic added, Milton’s internal body temperature was already too low to register on a rectal thermometer… Medical examiner Lieberman Edwin said an autopsy showed eight needle marks on the feet and hands as well as heroin and cocaine still undigested in the child’s stomach.”
The couple charged in Milton Rojas’ death, who had been watching the baby for mother Iris Rojas, claim the baby simply stopped snoring and turned blue before he died.
