Background: Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis. (Google Maps). Insets (left to right): Janet Solis and Devin Berg (Ozaukee County Sheriff”s Office).
A Wisconsin woman pleaded guilty to child neglect just shy of a year after her 5-day-old baby suffered skull fractures when she let him fall on a tile floor while she overdosed.
Janet Solis, 25, entered a guilty plea on Monday to one count of neglecting a child, just under a year after she was accused of letting her then-5-day-old baby son fall to a tile floor while she was in the hospital. According to a criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime, police were first notified on Nov. 4, 2024, that the newborn baby had sustained skull fractures after Solis “reportedly overdosed on heroin while in the hospital” and the baby fell from Solis’ hospital bed to the hard floor, where he was found by nursing staff at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, a northern suburb of Milwaukee.
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Solis’ boyfriend, 25-year-old Devin Berg, was also charged as a party to the crime of child neglect in connection with the incident. His case is still open, and he is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 10.
According to the complaint, detectives who investigated Solis found that she did not receive prenatal care because she said she was afraid of child protective services becoming involved. Solis told police that she used marijuana and heroin while she was pregnant; a urine test taken while she was at the hospital after the baby’s birth revealed that she had marijuana and fentanyl in her system.
The baby “tested positive for cocaine, fentanyl, and THC and was suffering from withdrawal symptoms following his birth” on Oct. 29, 2024.
Concerns that Solis and Berg were using drugs while at the hospital emerged on Nov. 3, when nurses checked on Solis at 9 p.m. The complaint stated that during that visit, Solis left the newborn unattended on her hospital bed while she used the bathroom. She later admitted that she was using heroin at the 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.
