A Belle Chasse woman has been booked with killing her 17-month-old son, injecting the hand sanitizer Germ-X into the body of a toddler who was born with Down syndrome and a heart defect. Lucas Ruiz died Jan. 24 from alcohol poisoning, in what his mother, Erika Wigstrom, 20, described to detectives as a mercy killing.
The official cause of death is "acute ethanol intoxication," according to the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office. The active ingredient in Germ-X is ethyl alcohol, the product's website says. Deputies arrested Wigstrom on Tuesday after she confessed to killing the child because she didn't want him to suffer anymore, authorities said. The family had written in his obituary that Lucas died "while cradled in the arms of his beloved mother."
She also confessed that she previously gave the child perfume, a crime with which her former boyfriend and Lucas' father, Cesar Ruiz, already is charged, according to the Sheriff's Office.
"From what I gathered from the detectives, they basically said she had no remorse," said Cmdr. Eric Becnel, a Sheriff's Office spokesman.
