DARLINGTON — A Belmont couple is charged with neglecting and starving their two young daughters in a case that a doctor told police is next to the worst she’s ever seen.
Dalton Allen Hopper, 25, and Jamie Lee Weigel, 26, are each charged as a party to a crime in Lafayette County Circuit Court with a Class C felony count of child abuse intentionally causing great bodily harm and a Class F felony count of neglecting a child with a consequence of great bodily harm, along with Class H felony counts of child abuse and child neglect.
If prosecuted to the full extent of the law, Hopper and Weigel each face up to 64.5 years in prison.
The couple was arrested and jailed in late March following an investigation by Lafayette County detectives but released two days later on $6,000 signature bonds.
District Attorney Jenna Gill requested cash bonds at their initial appearances on Monday, April 8.
“I was asking for a straight cash bond that would have kept them in jail,” Gill said later.
Judge Duane Jorgenson ruled against her request in favor of signature bonds. He ordered Hopper and Weigel to maintain bail monitoring and to have no contact with minors besides supervised visits with their children as dictated by Lafayette County Human Services.
Hopper is next in court on April 22, and Weigel on May 6.
Neither has a criminal record, but Weigel was previously investigated in 2015 for a similar child neglect case related to malnutrition and starvation, according to Gill. Weigel was not criminally charged in that case.
The victims in the current case, a 4-month-old girl and a 14-month-old girl, were hospitalized for malnutrition and starvation but are now with family
“Both of the children have been released from the hospital and are in the care of other family members,” Gill said.
The criminal complaints against Hopper and Weigel, filed April 4, describe the dire health consequences the babies suffered from months of neglect. It alleges the couple not only ignored their children’s needs, despite having access to formula, diapers and food, but lied to family members who expressed concern.
According to medical records and detective reports filed with the criminal complaint:
The case came to the attention of authorities March 23, when a doctor at Upland Hills Health in Dodgeville called the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Office to report a “very thin and malnourished” 4-month-old who “should have received medical attention much sooner.” The infant had not been seen by a doctor since she was two days old.
A detective responded to the hospital within an hour and observed a lethargic infant with “little to no fat or muscle tissue between her skin and bones” and dark red chemical burns caused by prolonged exposure to urine and feces in dirty diapers.
Medical staff were feeding her from a small syringe, and she “only moved her mouth and jaw slowly as she swallowed,” the detective wrote.
The baby was transferred by ambulance to the University of Wisconsin Children’s Hospital in Madison for intensive treatment.
Her 14-month-old sister also showed signs of malnutrition and starvation, as well as significant developmental delays. She had skin lesions from improperly treated eczema. She had not been seen by a doctor since her two-month checkup.
Both babies were born healthy, the medical records showed. The 4-month-old weighed about 6.5 pounds at her birth in November. When she arrived at the hospital on March 23, her weight was only 5 pounds, 12 ounces. It was so low that she didn’t even register a percentile on the growth chart.
The older girl weighed just over 6 pounds at her birth in January 2018, but at the hospital on March 25 she weighed less than 15 pounds, which is in the 0.23 percentile for her age.
UW Health Physician Assistant Amanda Palm said the 4-month-old had bed sores and rashes “consistent with an infant lying in one place without being picked up for hours on end,” a detective noted.
Palm, who specializes in child protection cases, told detectives that in five years in her position at the hospital she had seen only one other case where a child suffered more neglect and malnutrition.
Hopper and Weigel’s infant could have died in as little as a week’s time from starvation had they not brought her to the hospital when they did, Palm said. The girl will likely have permanent brain damage.
Hopper and Weigel brought the 4-month-old to the hospital on March 23 only after Weigel’s mother, alarmed at the infant’s frail size, demanded that they take her immediately to see a doctor or she would take the girl herself. Weigel’s mother had asked the couple to seek medical attention for their children weeks earlier. Weigel later admitted to lying to her mother about going to the doctor at that time.
Weigel told detectives when family members expressed concern about her daughters’ health, she’d “tell lies” and say the girls were thin because they refused bottles or had problems spitting up.
In truth, Weigel said she routinely fed the girls as infrequently as once a day, despite being home with the girls all day and receiving formula, baby food and diapers through a state-funded program.
Hopper and Weigel are engaged and live together in the 300 block of Market Street in Belmont. Weigel is unemployed and stayed home with the babies, while Hopper works full-time in East Dubuque, Illinois. The two girls are their first and only children together, though they have children from previous relationships. Until her arrest, Weigel had at least partial custody of her other children, two 5-year-olds who are not twins but were similarly born in quick succession.
When detectives asked Weigel about her typical daily schedule, Weigel said she “would stay in bed, sleeping, scrolling Facebook, talking to friends or watching television” most of the day while the babies stayed in a separate bedroom. She often ignored their crying, she said.
Hopper said he didn’t hold his children often and rarely went into their bedroom or spent time with them when he got home in the evenings.
For months, the girls received human interaction once or twice a day, detectives found. A detective who visited Hopper’s and Weigel’s home noted a “strong ammonia scent” from urine in the baby room.
Weigel said she and Hopper were overwhelmed with taking care of two babies so close in age. She also told detectives she had depression and anxiety and was distracted by a custody battle with her ex for her other two children.
She explained her neglect as “pure laziness” and said she didn’t seek medical help because she was afraid of being “judged.” She said she was investigated for child neglect in 2015.
“I knew I would get in trouble,” she said. “I know I should have done something sooner.”
Detectives noted that throughout their interview with Weigel, she never asked how the babies were doing and “never showed remorse” for their health. Instead, she was “constantly justifying” her actions as a result of anxiety and depression and “her unfortunate circumstances.”
Hopper “changed his story several times when questioned about specifics and inconsistencies,” according to detectives.
He told detectives he had heard Weigel spank the older baby and yell at both to shut up. He said he didn’t take the children to see a doctor because he was “trying to protect Jamie” and didn’t want to “piss Jamie off.” He said he chose his relationship needs with Weigel over the health and safety of his children and it had not occurred to him the babies might suffer long-term injuries from their lack of care.
The criminal complaints also include about 20 pages of text message exchanges between Hopper and Weigel, retrieved from electronic devices seized by police from their home.
In frequent and long messages to Hopper, which he only sporadically acknowledged, Weigel complained about the babies’ screaming and difficulties eating, told him how frustrated and overwhelmed she was and lashed out at him for not helping her.
“Do you know what it feels like when you can’t even take a shower or bath without feeling guilty? I question every single one of my actions because of these kids. I never get a break from it,” she wrote in a message on Jan. 10.
“I don’t want to be anywhere near my kids,” she wrote on Feb. 5. The next day, she messaged Hopper that she was ready to “beat” and “hurt” their older daughter and let her “starve.”
“I’d like to see you be a stay-at-home parent for a week, no help, nothing, then tell me how you’d feel,” she wrote. Over the course of months, she repeatedly messaged him that she didn’t want to be a stay-at-home parent, was thinking of hurting the babies and needed help.