Inset: Ruben Santiago (Ocean County Jail). Background: Pinehurst Drive in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, where Santiago beat his infant daughter to death (Google Maps).
A New Jersey man who beat his 3-month-old daughter to death because he was overwhelmed and stressed about finances will spend more than two decades behind bars.
Ruben Santiago, 37, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter after the beating death of his infant daughter, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said. On Friday, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Santiago fractured the girl's skull and caused her brain to bleed.
Santiago's own attorney couldn't come up with much of an excuse for his client's action.
"How does something like this happen?" attorney Glenn Kassman said, according to a courtroom report from NJ.com. "We can't justify it…It's unjustifiable."
The Lakewood Township Police Department responded around 7:20 p.m. May 5, 2025, to an apartment on Pinehurst Drive for an infant who was having trouble breathing. Officers found the girl unresponsive and paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital. She died the next day.
An autopsy showed the girl died of blunt force trauma to the head "causing fracturing and subdural hematoma." The medical examiner deemed the death a homicide.
Initially, both Santiago and the girl's mother were arrested. But prosecutors dropped the charges against the girl's mother earlier this year and as part of his plea, Santiago "exonerated" her from any wrongdoing. NJ.com reported the attorney for the mother proved that she was not at home at the time of the fatal beating.
The autopsy also showed that the girl had suffered beatings for most of her short life. She suffered seven broken ribs and a broken wrist that were in various stages of healing, prosecutors said, per NJ.com.
Santiago reportedly tried to claim he had dropped the girl on her head when he was picking her up but her injuries did not match the father's explanations. His defense said he was frustrated and concerned about finances.
"He took it out on his baby," said Ocean County Chief Trial Attorney Kristin Pressman, according to NJ.com. "A helpless child."
Santiago said he was sorry for his actions and became emotional as he addressed the court.
"If I could trade my life for hers, I would in a heartbeat," Santiago said.
Judge Guy P. Ryan said Santiago's frustrations were no justification to harm an innocent child.
"These things are no different than what anyone else would go through — that millions of people have gone through," Ryan reportedly fumed.
The judge concluded: "There's no way you can describe this child's death as anything other than heinous and cruel."
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