New Castle police arrested a man on criminal homicide charges in the 2023 death of a baby.
Isaias Joniel Robles Nieves, 31, of the city's West Side was arrested after the 1-year-old child died Jan. 19, 2023, in a Harbor Heights apartment. A forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy ruled the death a homicide due to blunt force trauma of the head and trunk.
When police arrived at the apartment that morning, the child was unconscious but alive and flown to a Youngstown hospital. The child later died in the hospital.
West Side man charged in baby's 2023 death
Noah Santiago was just under 2 years old when he fell unconscious while his mother was working and later died at a Pittsburgh hospital.
According to the criminal complaint, there was a hole in the closet door by the crib. An officer asked the doctor, "If an adult held a child and slammed that child into the wall striking the child's head, would this be enough force to cause the damage that was located during the autopsy?" The doctor answered that it was certainly a possibility, police said.
Before his death, investigators said Santiago was treated for a leg fracture, and when he came back for another visit, he had two leg fractures.
The boy's mother told police that she had never seen her boyfriend be abusive to any of her children.
