When we send our kids to daycare, we are trusting that the people we leave them with are going to watch over them with the same level of care we would. But 60-year-old Rebecca Anderson, who owns a daycare in Mesquite, Texas, has been arrested for allegedly unnecessarily medicating the children in her care and for keeping them strapped in their car seats — sometimes for as long as seven hours a day. The woman reportedly admitted she performed these acts to make her job easier.
According to court documents obtained by NBC 5, Anderson was arrested on Saturday after police found evidence of abuse and neglect.
According to NBC 5, police executed a search of Anderson's home, which is also the location of Becky's Home Child Care, and found nine children inside. Shockingly, some of the children were reportedly bound and restricted to their car seats. Investigators also say they found evidence that Anderson had unnecessarily given some of the children over-the-counter Tylenol and had exhibited poor hygiene practices.
The investigation unfolded after a dad sent his baby to daycare with a secret camera -- and caught disturbing footage.
The dad, whose 6-month-old baby attended Becky's Home Child Care, had attached a camera to his son's car seat and says he caught Anderson yanking the boy out of his chair, picking him off the ground using the bib that was tied around his neck, and feeding the infant an "unknown substance using a plastic liquid syringe."
The father, who has yet to be identified, showed the footage to police, who then obtained a search warrant for Anderson's home. Inside the home they reported they found three children strapped to plastic car seats, some without the padding, in Anderson's master bedroom closest with the lights off. A fourth child was reportedly hidden in the bathroom. The police also noted that Anderson had initially told them there were only five children in her home and only found these four car seat-bound kids after they searched the house.
Anderson reportedly admitted she had "likely given Tylenol to all of the children" and left them in their car seats for sometimes seven hours a day.
The arrest warrant also stated that police had found "shoelace-like ligatures" tied around the children's necks that were so tight that some had to be cut off. The daycare owner admitted that she had tied the ligatures to limit the children's movement in an effort to make her job easier.
Anderson has been charged with nine counts of endangering a child and her bail was set at $5,000 for each charge. She is being held in the Dallas County Jail, though it is not clear if Anderson has retained an attorney.
Keonna Oliver, whose grandson went to Anderson's daycare for 13 months, but left before the investigation, told NBC News that while she removed her grandson from Anderson's care because of scheduling conflicts, she could tell something was off about the situation.
Oliver said that sometimes when she would go to pick up her grandson, Tristan, she could see bruises along his legs and neck. The boy had started at the daycare at about 7 months old, but even for a youngster learning to be more mobile, his grandmother said she couldn't figure out where the bruises were coming from.
"I knew something was strange about her, and I couldn’t figure it out. He’s a little boy. He's going to get bruises. I didn’t want to be that grandparent," she told reporters. She said she also found it suspicious that Anderson would not allow parents to pick up their children at the same time and that parents were not allowed inside her home.
"She would come outside and stand and talk to you for 15, 20 minutes at time," Oliver remembered. "I'd think, 'You better go in before the kids get rowdy.'"
The grandmother admitted that thinking back, she should have known right away that there was something wrong with Anderson. Her grandson would often come home with severe diaper rash and was often starving after being in Anderson's care all day. Oliver spoke out about her anger towards Anderson and shares that she hopes Anderson will face retribution for her actions. "I hope they put her in a closet by herself in the dark," she said.
