WHITEWATER — A competency hearing has been ordered for Santos Asucena Caseres Cruz, a Whitewater mother who allegedly watched as her baby slowly turned purple before leaving it for dead in a nearby field.
An arraignment was scheduled for June 15. However, attorney Jeffrey De La Rosa, who represents Caseres Cruz, raised the issue of his client’s competency before Jefferson County Branch II Circuit Court Judge William Hue.
Judge Hue ordered the competency examination and said it should be filed within 30 days.
Caseres Cruz, 38, of 755, N. Tratt St., Lot 42, remains in the custody of the Jefferson County Jail on $10,000 bail. She was charged in March with neglecting a child, resulting in death and moving, hiding or burying a child. The charges are connected to an infant found in a field near a Whitewater trailer park.
Bail conditions, set by Judge Hue, require Caseres Cruz to surrender her passport, not leave Jefferson County and comply with GPS monitoring by Wisconsin Community Services.
Caseres Cruz faces up to 37-and-a-half years in prison and $125,000 in fines if convicted.
The offenses for which Caseres Cruz is charged allegedly occurred shortly after the child was born on Jan. 27, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case, and written by Whitewater police Detective Anthony Heilberger.
Whitewater Police Officer Paul Bradley and other officers responded to Twin Oaks Trailer Park at about 11 a.m. March 4 for a report of a newborn baby found deceased, according to the complaint.
“Officers were led to a cardboard box approximately five yards off the roadway on the far end of the mobile home park,†Heilberger wrote. “There was a black garbage bag just off the roadway and a light red cloth beside the black garbage bag. Fellow Officer Kolb confirmed there was a newborn baby inside the red cloth and the infant was deceased.â€
Witnesses said they found the box in a field near the trailer park at approximately 11:05 a.m. Two of them carried the box toward the road, not knowing what was inside. When they opened the box, they removed a black garbage bag with blue tie strings from the box, set the bag down, opened it and emptied the contents of the bag. When they saw that what was inside the box was a baby, wrapped in a shirt, they called 911, according to the complaint.
Employees of a local funeral home transported the remains to the Milwaukee Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. A cause of death has yet to be determined.
Police interviewed Caseres Cruz after determining a person she knew was associated with an address on the box. Caseres Cruz believed she was pregnant with the boy as a result of her relationship with a man other than the father of her other children, according to the complaint.
“The defendant said she gave birth to a baby boy,†Heilberger wrote. “When the baby was born, he was not breathing and was not moving. The baby did not cry. She believed the baby was deceased. She continually checked to see if the baby was breathing, but never felt him move or breathe.â€
She wrapped the baby in a shirt and placed him in a white plastic bag. She left the bag open in case the baby started to breathe. She hid the baby under the sink, according to the complaint.
“The defendant said she did not believe the baby took a breath,†Heilberger wrote. “She modified her previous statement and said she knew the baby was alive when it was first born, but was possibly choking. When she gave birth to her other children, she had other people there with her. She knows that sometimes when babies are born, if they don’t come out fast enough, they start to drown inside the mom. They come out purple and if nothing is done immediately the baby will die. When her baby was born, he had to have been alive and she did not do anything so that is how he might have died. After the baby was born he started getting purple. His face started getting purple first, then as the night went on, his body, then his arms and hands. She never helped the baby. She did not call 911 because she was scared of her children finding out she was pregnant.â€
She later took the baby from inside the cabinet, wrapped him in a pink sweatshirt and put him inside a cardboard box. She “placed the box on her bed and cried all night,†Heilberger wrote.
She drove to a field near the trailer park about 5 a.m. and left the baby there.
“She said she checked on the box every day and cried,†Heilberger wrote.
