A Texas home daycare owner allegedly kept toddlers in a dark closet while they were strapped into car seats, restricted their movements with cotton shoelaces tied around their necks and fed them Tylenol “to make her job easier,” according to an arrest warrant in the case.
Police discovered the alleged abuses Friday after viewing a video recorded on a camera placed by a parent on his baby’s car seat before he left the child at Becky’s Home Child Care in Mesquite, Texas, the affidavit states.
Confronted by detectives at her home-based daycare, the owner, 60-year-old Rebecca Anderson, allegedly acknowledged that what she did was wrong and could have resulted in the death of a child, police say.
The accusations led police to arrest Anderson on nine counts of a charge listed as “abandon endanger child criminal negligence,” one for each of the nine children found in her care, and a separate charge for injury to a child with intent to inflict bodily injury, jail records show.
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Authorities say the family whose video recording was brought to the attention of police had dropped off their 6-month-old at the center last Thursday, after mounting a camera on their son’s car seat.
After retrieving the child at 4 p.m. and returning home, the family watched the video recording, which allegedly shows Anderson roughly yanking the child out of his car seat and then using a plastic syringe to feed him an unknown substance, according to the arrest warrant.
The family shared the video with police the next day.
Authorities who first obtained a search warrant knocked on the door of Becky’s Home Child Care about 1:30 p.m. Friday and were met by Anderson, who initially told them she had five children in her care at the time. But police eventually found nine children in the home.
Three children were in a dark master bedroom closet strapped into plastic car seats and with the door closed, according to the arrest affidavit.
All nine children were found with what police described as ligatures around their necks, subsequently identified as cotton shoelaces, that Anderson allegedly told detectives she used to keep the toddlers from reaching out to remove themselves from their car seats.
Initially she denied feeding the children any medication, but when shown the video recording provided by the parents, she told police she fed them Tylenol as a way to “make her job easier,” according to the arrest affidavit.
Records show Anderson remained Tuesday in the Dallas County jail on a $45,000 bond — $5,000 for each of the nine criminal negligence charges– and a separate $10,000 bond on the charge of injury to a child with intent to inflict bodily harm.
It could not be determined if she had retained an attorney who could speak on her behalf, or if she had entered a plea to the charges against her.
Authorities said all of the children recovered at the daycare center were medically evaluated at Children’s Hospital in Dallas.
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