"Cousins say mother used drugs on day her infant died" by Jan Ransom Globe Staff November 12, 2016
MARLBOROUGH — In the final month of her pregnancy, Grecia Gallegos was eager to meet her baby boy.
The 19-year-old told friends on Facebook that she could feel the child hiccup, and it brought her such joy.
She named the boy Carlos.
“It’s been a day with my son and I feel so blessed and happy,” she wrote on Oct. 3. “I couldn’t be more in love. Words cannot describe the love I feel for my prince.”
On Thursday, nearly a month later, Carlos was dead, and Gallegos and her boyfriend, the child’s father, were found unresponsive in her Harrison Place home. They are recovering at an area hospital. Officials have not named the parents or the infant, but Gallegos’s relatives identified her and her son on Friday.
Two of her cousins said in an interview Friday that Grecia Gallegos had tried drugs for the first time Thursday. Authorities declined to comment on that account Friday.
Uh-huh.
According to the two cousins, Gallegos’s mother came home at 11:30 a.m. Thursday and walked into her bedroom, where she found her daughter on the floor, unconscious with blood trickling from her mouth. Gallegos’s boyfriend lay face down on the bed, unresponsive. The baby was on the bed next to him, face up, and was cold to the touch, said Alfredo Rojas, 28, Gallegos’s cousin.
“She freaked out and called 911,” Rojas said. “The paramedics came and said he had been dead for a couple of hours.”
Gallegos is expected to remain in the hospital for several more days, Rojas said. Her 23-year-old boyfriend also remained hospitalized. The two cousins said the pair had been dating for about a year and that he had served in the Navy. They said they did not know much else about him. At family events, he kept to himself.
Rojas said Grecia Gallegos had tried drugs for the first time Thursday, but he was unsure what she had taken. She told the cousins that her boyfriend had taken drugs before, according to Rojas.
That's like an alcoholic saying I only had one.
Rojas said his cousin does not recall much of what happened that day.
“She only remembers taking something and blacking out,” he said.
Gallegos gained consciousness on Friday, and that’s when the family broke the news to her about the baby’s death. She hasn’t stopped crying since, Rojas said.
“She was looking forward to him, and spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with him,” said the second cousin, Magaly Rojas, 30. “The holidays will be rough. It’s a tragedy, especially for her, to know that the baby and all the dreams she had for him are nonexistent.”
The cousins said the family has been struggling to cope as they try to support Gallegos.
Alfredo Rojas said he believed the death was an accident and that Gallegos has been cooperating with police in their investigation.
Or child abandonment and neglect.
A spokeswoman for the Middlesex district attorney’s office said the investigation was ongoing and no additional information was being released as officials wait for more information from the medical examiner’s office.
Alfredo Rojas said his cousin was a student at Quincy College, where she met her boyfriend. Magaly Rojas, sister of Alfredo, said she has long been interested in fashion design. But when Carlos was born, he became her focus.
She was excited about motherhood, they both said, and her Facebook page is filled with photos of Carlos.
“His smile melts my heart,” she wrote above a photo of him posted on Oct. 6. Carlos was dressed in a onesie and smiling in his sleep. Roughly two weeks ago, she shared a photo of him sleeping in a car seat at church.
Neighbor Armando Mateo, 16, described Gallegos as a quiet, respectful person. Mateo, a student at Marlborough High School, said Gallegos recently graduated from that school and that the family attends Centro Cristiano Emanuel, a church on Boston Post Road.
Jeannita Walsh, 65, who lives across the street from the family, said Gallegos’s mother holds a weekly Bible study at her home.
Walsh also attended Gallegos’s baby shower in September, bringing the young woman Pampers and pacifiers as gifts.
“Congratulations! You’re having a boy,” Walsh recalled saying to Gallegos, who quietly enjoyed the celebration as her mother danced around.
Walsh told Gallegos she would be happy to baby-sit if needed.
On Gallegos’s Facebook page were photos from the baby shower, including that of a sheet cake with Carlos’s name on it and a stork carrying a baby from its bill.
But Walsh said Gallegos’s boyfriend is “not a good character.”
Two other neighbors said he had gotten into fights on the quiet street, including once with a resident.
Neighbor Susan Sweeney, 35, said he would often speed in his car down the dead-end street.
“The guy is weird,” she said. “He was not friendly.”
Walsh, Mateo, and another neighbor, Fred Cahill, 76, said the boyfriend came and went at all hours of the night.
But Magaly Rojas said the boyfriend appeared to be a concerned father.
And she said Carlos’s sudden death has left the family stunned.
“This has been a shock to everybody in our family,” she said. “All we want now is to take care of him, give him a proper burial, and help my cousin through what she’s going through. We ask for prayers and support to help these young people recover.”
Forget the drug use and outrage. They must be immigrants.
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Related: Dead infant’s father says he’s not ‘a baby murderer’
What is with the kid glove and sympathy treatment from the pre$$, and didn't the cops find any residue of the stuff he refused to name?
Also see: Man dies in I-91 crash after State Police pursuit
No name there, either. An illegal?
