Twisted nurse Erin Strotman had her entire life planned out before her arrest for breaking the legs of babies in her care – leaving her facing 30 years in jail.
Pinned social media posts on a profile belonging to Strotman showed the life she was longing to have – an engagement, dad and mom photoshoots and holiday party ideas.
But now the 26-year-old could be spending those years behind bars after being charged with malicious wounding and felony child abuse.
The nurse from Midlothian, Virginia, was caught on video breaking the thigh bone of one five-month-old premature boy in the neonatal intensive care unit of Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond.
She is accused of harming six other children, with police reopening their 2023 investigations into their injuries.
Strotman is facing up to twenty years in prison for malicious wounding and ten for child abuse – a total of 30 behind bars if a sentencing judge chooses to make them run concurrently.
Her Pinterest board painted a picture of the life she wishes she had – including inspiration for an engagement shoot.
Sources say her long-term boyfriend has been trying to ‘distance himself’ from the nurse. Going as far as removing all traces of her from his social media shortly after her arrest.
But despite this, Strotman clearly had high hopes for their future, saving loved-up engagement pictures to her page just a week before she was arrested.
Ironically, she had several images saved under ‘nurse stuff’, including a ring and bracelet showing a heartbeat.
The NICU nurse also had several couples’ photos saved under the headline ‘dad and mom photoshoot’, despite not having any children of her own.
One of her boards was flagged as ‘sensitive content’, with Strotman saving two files of boudoir photoshoots and pose ideas.
She also had tattoo ideas which included a jellyfish, a compass, a matching couple’s wolf paw design and the words ‘what’s coming is better than what is gone’.
Other day-to-day images include cowboy stew in dinner ideas and a Disney-themed Mickey Mouse birthday party, as well as Halloween appetizers.
Her future fantasies were uncovered after DailyMail.com revealed the horrific details of how Strotman broke the legs of the babies in her care.
A police report detailed that one five-month-old boy had a broken thigh, a fractured right tibia and several broken ribs.
Strotman took the boy – identified only as Y.H. – by the legs and then applied pressure to them, wrote Detective Megan Lynch.
‘Ms. Strotman was observed to be placing her weight down on the legs of Y.H.’ added Lynch.
‘Ms. Strotman was observed then taking both legs and pushing them backwards to where Y.H.’s feet were at his head.
‘Y.H. looked to be crying and in distress,’ the detective wrote, noting that the boy’s left leg moved normally but the right did not.
She has only been charged in relation to one child so far, but remains in jail after bail was refused by a judge.
The video was made on November 10 when Strotman had returned to work after she and three colleagues had been suspended on full pay for almost a year after four boys received unexplained leg fractures.
They were allowed to return after investigations failed to find who was responsible for the injuries.
While the nurses were suspended, the hospital installed ‘angel cameras’ which allowed constant monitoring of the premature babies. Staff claimed that is how Strotman was caught.
Officials confirmed that the injuries discovered this year were ‘similar to an incident involving four babies in the summer of 2023’, with Henrico County Police reviewing ‘dozens of videos’ from inside the unit.
Detectives are re-examining the 2023 and 2024 cases as part of the broader investigation.
Details of how Strotman allegedly injured the boy comes after sources close to the hospital told DailyMail.com that she was ‘racist’ and initially targeted only black children.
One source told DailyMail.com: ‘The majority of the babies were black babies, when she came back when they noticed the pattern, she tried to throw them off by targeting a white baby and a girl baby.’
The source also stated that Strotman was a weak student during her time in nursing school.
‘She wasn’t the strongest in the class, she was literally one of the slowest. People are saying she’s a white supremacist but that’s a bit of a stretch.
‘I definitely felt like she was racist, she was deeply southern rooted,’ they explained.
‘I was surprised at what she did, but I’I was surprised at what she did, but I’m not surprised that it was her. If anyone was to do something crazy, she would have been at the top of the list.’
But Henrico Police said in a press release that ‘social media videos’ claiming Strotman’s motivation behind her heinous actions were based on race was ‘not factual’.
Despite this statement from officials, those who trained and worked with Strotman told DailyMail.com they were shocked that she had been placed on the specialist unit in the first place.
One described her as being ‘weird’ and always ‘in the background’ during their training at ECPI University in Richmond.
Strotman’s arrest came after Dominique and Tori Hackey spoke out after Virginia Child Services informed them that their newborn baby Noah had been abused by an employee at the NICU when he suffered a fractured leg following his premature birth.
Dominique was present at Strotman’s January 3 arraignment, along with three other families who had babies that were allegedly abused at the NICU.