New Orleans mom Erika Wigstrom sentenced for killing son with hand sanitizer

Mike Gallagher

Sep 18, 2015 - 15:21

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Erika Wigstrom

A mother in New Orleans pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing her 17-month-old son with hand sanitizer, The Times-Picayune reports.

Erika Wigstrom, 22, was indicted in 2014 on murder charges after injecting hand sanitizer into her son’s feeding tube, which poisoned him to death. She told police she did it “as an act of mercy” because her son suffered from Down syndrome and had a heart defect, The Times-Picayune reports. The boy died with a blood-alcohol level of .28 percent.

Wigstrom was also accused of trying to murder the boy in 2012 by feeding him alcohol-based perfume -- and the infant's father, Cesar Ruiz, 22, was arrested the same year for putting rum in the boy’s feeding tube, according to The Times-Picayune.

Wigstrom was sentenced to 40 years in prison without probation.