HILLSBORO, Ore. -- Investigators revealed Friday that the father to an infant fed breast milk spiked with morphine by a 25-year-old Aloha woman was, in fact, a doctor himself.
Dr. Wallace Lai is a board-certified cardiologist who completed his residency in internal medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, according to the hospital's website.
Dr. Lai specializes in studying the electrical activity in the heart, according to OHSU, and works at the Tuality Healthcare facility in Hillsboro. He also is an assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at OHSU.
Dr. Lai, a 43-year-old resident of Southwest Portland, did not return repeated phone calls from KGW, and a physician's answering service said he was off for the weekend.
The mother of Lai's child, who described herself as "his girlfriend," Dillard-Lubin was out of prison on probation for a 2005 conviction on child cruelty charges in Los Angeles County, Calif. when she was arrested on assault charges in Washington County.
In that case, she had poisoned her 10-month-old son with morphine. Custody of the boy was transferred to his father, a man other than Dr. Lai, according to investigators.
Dillard-Lubin later had her probation transferred to Oregon, where she was able to find work as a medical assistant at Oregon Pediatrics, though she has minimal medical training and is not a licensed nurse, investigators said.
Police were first alerted to the Oregon child's poisoning sometime in June.
According to Sheriff's Office Sgt. Thompson, Dillard-Lubin took her 2-month-old daughter to St. Vincent's Hospital on June 3, claiming the infant had a high fever in an attempt to lure Dr. Lai to meet with her.
Dr. Lai did not meet Dillard-Lubin at the hospital, though doctors still admitted the little girl for "observation."
The next morning, a nurse found the child barely breathing. Investigators believe Dillard-Lubin spiked her breast milk with a high dose of morphine and fed it to her daughter.
"At this point detectives are speculating that she was trying to get his attention because he didn't have any interest in caring for the child," Thompson said.
The baby survived, but her condition puzzled doctors until toxicology tests came back positive for opiates.
Dillard-Lubin told the hospital that she was on a pain killer and the opiates must have come through her breast milk.
When she brought in a sample for them to test, they found high levels of morphine, indicating the drug had been added to the milk after pumping.
The hospital alerted the state Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services and county investigators.
The infant was taken from Dillard-Lubin and placed in state custody.
Dillard-Lubin made her first court appearance on Aug. 13, facing several charges stemming from the assault on her child.
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