The father of a Virginia toddler who suffered a mysterious bone fracture as a newborn in a Richmond hospital's neonatal intensive care unit says the victims all shared one common trait, even as a motive remains unclear.
They were all boys.
They suffered different injuries, came from diverse families and had nothing else in common that the parents could identify, according to Dominique Hackey, whose young son, Noah, suffered an unexplained fractured tibia in September 2023.
"There were all different injuries, and two boys had multiple injuries," he told Fox News Digital. "So far, in chatting amongst ourselves, we can't find a pattern of why our babies, other than that, they were just boys."
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The Henrico Doctors' Hospital shut down its NICU on Christmas Eve after authorities said they were launching an internal investigation into a series of "unexplainable fractures" of bones in newborn patients – three in the past two months that appeared similar to another four from 2023.
Henrico police arrested Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman, a 26-year-old registered nurse, Friday on charges of malicious wounding and child abuse for one of the incidents. Police are investigating six more, including the Hackeys' case and three other reopened cases that were closed without charges last year due to a lack of evidence.
While reports have circulated on social media that Strotman allegedly targeted children by race, Hackey knocked down those claims, telling Fox News Digital only two of the victims were Black. Hackey said he has been in touch with all the other victim’s families but one. He is hoping to meet them, too.
The identity of the victim who Strotman has so far been charged with injuring remains sealed by the court due to health care and juvenile privacy rules. She is due back in court in March.
Hackey's son, Noah, was one of the 2023 victims, and until last month had been under the impression that his case was an isolated incident. He had been told that officials suspected child abuse fractured his son's tibia, but investigators didn't have enough evidence to bring charges.
When the hospital said it was closing its NICU on Christmas Eve, he said a friend sent him a news article, and he learned that the attack on his son was not the only incident. Then he began speaking out publicly, raising awareness about his experience and the attack on his son, who was born at 28 weeks and six days.
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Hackey said he remembers Strotman from the family's NICU stay but had barely interacted with her. He remembers her as "nice" but "insignificant."
"It truly didn't matter whether you were there all day, whether you were not there all day. This person found a way to still hurt our children," he said. "That's the part that keeps me up at night, because the first emotion that my son ever experienced was pain, and that's not supposed to happen. The first emotion is supposed to be joy and laughter, you know, making funny faces at them. And that wasn't the case, unfortunately, for my son and six other boys."
Hackey said he only recently learned that Strotman had been placed on paid leave at some point, evidence that he says shows the hospital did suspect wrongdoing long before police announced her arrest last week. Investigators have largely left him without updates after confirming they believed his son's injuries came from serious child abuse.
The hospital is cooperating with investigators and has given police hundreds of hours of surveillance video.
"We are both shocked and saddened by this development in the investigation and are focused on continuing to care for our patients and providing support to our colleagues who have been deeply and personally impacted by this investigation," the hospital said in a statement.
Medical records show the injury was inflicted a day earlier than the Hackeys were previously told, he said. At the time of Noah's attack, the hospital had not yet installed surveillance cameras. It has since put in 24-hour video surveillance as well as a means for parents to livestream their newborn's room, and no staff members are permitted to enter without a second clinician for security purposes.
Police said they could not release many additional details about the case due to health care privacy laws. However, they are asking anyone with information that could help them bring more charges to contact detectives at police@henrico.gov, visit P3tips.com or call Crime Stoppers at 804-780-1000.
"Finding out that she was put on paid leave in connection with our cases, that the hospital suspected her, that's all new information ... to all of us," he said, referring to his family and the five others he's been in contact with.
Hackey said he retained a lawyer Monday.
Both of the twins are now happy and healthy, he said, and the family is looking to move forward despite the traumatic experience.
"Experiencing two miscarriages and then having twins, that's amazing," he told Fox News Digital. "And having them both here after being told you might lose one of them, the whole pregnancy and then after the pregnancy, it's truly a blessing, truly a blessing. Not many people have the privilege to be parents, and I was blessed two times over, so I'm going to do whatever I can to protect them."
