New Castle man charged in death of girlfriend’s 1-year-old baby

PITTSBURGH — A New Castle man is facing charges in the 2023 death of his girlfriend’s 1-year-old baby.

According to the criminal complaint, officers responded to an apartment for a child who was unconscious, not breathing and reported to be choking on Jan. 19, 2023. He was being loaded into an ambulance when officers arrived.

Isaias Robles Nieves, the child’s mother’s boyfriend, was with the child when he went unconscious and was partly responsible for his care at the time of the incident. He stated to police that Noah’s brother told him that the baby was not breathing. He tried to wake him up and called his girlfriend, telling her to contact emergency services, the complaint said.

Noah Santiago died at the hospital that night. His cause of death was determined as blunt force trauma to the head and trunk, and his death was ruled a homicide.

An investigator with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office who was performing Noah’s autopsy told police that Noah had a broken left leg from a previous incident, a subdural hematoma and a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Police determined the injuries were consistent with child abuse, specifically with shaken baby syndrome and/or blunt force trauma incidents, court documents said.

A search warrant executed on the apartment led to the discovery of a hole found it the closet door beside the crib in the master bedroom. It was around 506 inches.

Video surveillance showed Robles Nieves, Noah and Noah’s mother arriving at the apartment at around 1:50 p.m. on Jan. 19. They went inside at 1:53 p.m., and Noah’s mother left the residence at 2:05 p.m., the complaint said.

>> Death of a New Castle 1-year-old ruled a homicide

Court documents said police got in contact with a physician who treated Noah on the night of his death. She said his injuries were “extremely concerning” for her for child abuse, and that the hemorrhage and hematoma were consisted with blunt force trauma. She also said that his previously broken leg was placed in a boot, but that when he revisited, there was a second fracture in the same leg, which she believed he received in a second incident.

Robles Nieves was taking care of Noah when he broke his leg. He told his girlfriend that his leg got caught in the slats of his crib, which she told to doctors. The physician told police that the story was inconsistent as the cause of injury because only one fracture should have been present, court documents said.

The physician also said that the onset of symptoms should have been immediate with the injury Noah had and that if he was moving and alert in the surveillance video, then the injury would have had to have happened after he got out of the car. She said with the time frame between the surveillance video and the 911 call 35 minutes later, the blunt force trauma incident happened when Noah was inside the apartment, the complaint said.

In an interview with police, Noah’s mother said she had never seen Robles Nieves being abusive with any of the children in the house and that Noah was sick with a cold the day of his death. Police told her that his injuries were not caused by an accident or illness.

Three months after Noah died, the person who performed the autopsy determined his death to be a homicide. Police asked him “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?” He said it was certainly possible, the complaint said.

Investigators went back to the apartment and took DNA from the hole in the closet door. The samples traced back to Noah and his mother, as well as two other unknown, unrelated people.

Robles Nieves is charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children. Investigators will attempt to secure a DNA swab from him after he is taken into custody.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

©2023 Cox Media Group