Erin Elizabeth Ann Strotman, a Virginia woman was charged with child abuse on Thursday over her connection to mysterious injuries that appeared on a newborn in a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital where she worked as a nurse. According to Henrico County Police Division, Strotman was charged with malicious wounding and felony child abuse. The former nurse was arraigned at the Henrico County Juvenile/Domestic Relations Court on Friday, Jan. 6. She faces one count of felony child neglect and one count of malicious wounding for an injury sustained by an infant on or about Nov. 10, 2024. This comes after seven babies at the hospital’s NICU were found with “unexplained fractures” in the summer of 2023 and in Nov. and Dec. 2024 at the care unit of Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond. If found guilty, Ms. Strotman faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the felony child neglect charge and 20 years for the malicious wounding charge, Shannon Taylor, the Henrico County’s commonwealth’s attorney, said in a statement. Ms. Strotman is being held without bond in Henrico County Regional Jail West. Her lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Saturday. Shannon Taylor, Henrico County’s Commonwealth’s Attorney, confirmed that Strotman was employed at the hospital both in 2023 and in 2024. However, the hospital in its statement described Ms. Strotman as a former employee, declined to say when Ms. Strotman began working there. Though Ms. Taylor said Ms. Strotman’s arrest was only for her connection to the single case, the Henrico County Police Division said that “detectives are re-examining the 2023 and 2024 cases as part of this broader investigation.” The Henrico County Police Division and Ms. Taylor declined to provide specifics about the babies’ injuries. Ms. Taylor said in the statement that her “thoughts are with the families” of those injured “who suffered harm while in a facility designed to provide comfort and care.” A woman shared with 8News that her child had suffered 12 fractures while receiving care in the hospital’s NICU. “It makes me sick, it truly makes me sick,” said Dominique Hackey, of Chesterfield County, whose son’s tibia was fractured while at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital. “This person’s mentally ill and — to do that to all those families … there’s no happiness that I can feel at this point.” Hackey thought there would be different emotions after hearing his son’s case of child abuse in 2023 had reopened and that a legal battle had begun for one of the seven children involved — but this was not the case. Hackey grew emotional when meeting other families in court Friday. Once he met the parents who shared that their son suffered 12 fractures, he was brought to tears. “I couldn’t help but … just to break down for that father and that mother, because I felt how I felt when I learned that my son had a fracture — and that was helpless,” he said. “And to know that to that degree that there was nothing that father could do to protect his son … it’s horrifying.” When asked if Hackey had words for the Henrico Doctor’s Hospital, he said he feels as though the center failed him, along with many others. “You failed — you didn’t [just] fail me, but you failed so many other families as well as me, and that’s a problem, that’s a huge problem. “And they need to do better because it can’t happen again.” Hackey said. The hospital disclosed that: “We have been assisting law enforcement in their ongoing investigation and will continue to do so, we are both shocked and saddened by this development in the investigation.” It stated.
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