L.I. Woman Accused Of Murdering, Throwing Newborn In Garbage Held Without Bail
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) - A woman charged with murdering her newborn baby shortly after giving birth on Long Island has been ordered held without bail following an arraignment Friday.
As WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported, Santos Elena Ruiz Solano's husband said the 26-year-old was raped as she traveled to the U.S. from Honduras.
He added his wife didn't know she was pregnant and would never kill her newborn daughter.
L.I. Woman Accusing Of Murdering, Throwing Newborn In Garbage Held Without Bail
But prosecutors in court Friday told a different story, arguing that after the baby was born in a bathroom, she caused three fractures to the baby's skull.
"To cause those fractures would have required a significant amount of force. Either some object striking the baby's head or the baby's head being caused to strike against some other object," Suffolk County Prosecutor Glenn Kurtzrock said outside court. "She claimed that her husband's brother had raped her. If anything, that would seem to provide a motive."
But Solano's attorney Michael Brown said his client didn't kill her child.
"This baby was born premature. The baby was stillborn, it was not alive at the time of delivery," he told Hall. "Obviously, when she's delivering and the baby falls into, literally, the toilet bowl with porcelain, that certainly would cause blunt force trauma."
Solano has been charged with second-degree murder. She has two young children in Honduras and came to the U.S. about 7 months ago.
Suffolk County police said Solano gave birth to a girl around 3 a.m. Sunday at 40 Shoal Dr. in West Islip, where she was employed as a live-in housekeeper.
She is accused of then putting the baby in a plastic bag and leaving the home. The newborn was recovered from a garbage can and given to hospital personnel, who called police.
Solano was arrested on Thursday.
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