MARION COUNTY, Fla. – The long road to justice for two-month-old Wailan Roy Schroer reached a definitive milestone yesterday as a Marion County jury delivered a guilty verdict against his mother, 43-year-old Melissa Waiman Schroer. After weighing the evidence presented in the 2019 death of the infant, jurors found the Ocala woman guilty of Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child.
The case dates back to December 11, 2019, when law enforcement officers arrived at the Villages Hospital to find a deceased infant who had been brought in unresponsive. Initial reports from the scene indicated the child was found at a home off Southeast 36th Avenue before being rushed to medical personnel, who pronounced the boy dead on arrival.
In statements to Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies, Schroer claimed she had put the baby down for a nap and fell asleep herself. She alleged she was woken up by another child in the house who noticed Wailan wasn’t breathing…