MARION COUNTY, Fla. — A Marion County woman has been found guilty in the 2019 death of her 2-month-old son.
The State Attorney’s Office for Florida’s Fifth Judicial Circuit said jurors found 43-year-old Melissa Waiman Schroer guilty of aggravated manslaughter of a child on Thursday.
Schroer is scheduled to be sentenced June 29 by Judge Barbara Kissner.
The case involves the death of 2-month-old Wailan Roy Schroer.
According to prosecutors, law enforcement officers were called to The Villages Hospital on Dec. 11, 2019, after the infant was brought there unresponsive and pronounced dead.
Investigators said the child had been found unresponsive at a home off Southeast 36th Avenue in Ocala before being driven to the hospital.
Marion County deputies responded to the home, where prosecutors said Schroer told investigators she had put the infant to sleep while she took a nap.
According to the State Attorney’s Office, another child in the home woke Schroer and said the baby was not breathing.
Prosecutors said Schroer told her husband, Jeffrey Schroer, that Wailan was not breathing. Jeffrey Schroer then drove the infant to the hospital.
Major Crimes detectives interviewed both parents and said they gave varying accounts of what happened before the child’s death.
The Medical Examiner’s Office later determined the cause of death was methamphetamine toxicity, with dehydration and inanition listed as contributing conditions, according to prosecutors.
The death was ruled a homicide.
Prosecutors said investigators later established probable cause to arrest Schroer and her husband.
Authorities said they were initially unable to contact the couple and later learned they had fled the state and were living in Florence, Kentucky.
Both were arrested Dec. 10, 2021, by the Boone County Sheriff’s Office and extradited to Florida.
Jeffrey Schroer was also charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child and is awaiting prosecution, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant State Attorneys Marissa Meyer and Katrina Self.
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