| Gumballs |
05-20-2007 07:54 PM |
Toddler In Daycare Dies After Being Bound With Tape
This is totally fucked up. The parents must be beside themselves with anger, guilt and grief. My heart, sympathy and thoughts go out to them.
Toddler Dies in Daycare Center
Quote:
Two-year-old Joshua Minton of Sperry caught his first fish, a crappie, while fishing with his father, Robert Minton, a few weeks ago.
Joshua also caught a catfish on the outing.
"He caught a catfish that was longer than he was tall," Robert Minton said. "He said, 'It's a monster!' "
It would be the last fishing trip for the father and son.
Joshua was found unresponsive Thursday at his day care after the day-care provider allegedly left him unattended after binding his hands and covering his mouth with masking tape, according to police.
The toddler died at 10:22 p.m. Thursday.
"They let us hold him," said Joshua's mother, Kathryn Minton.
"You could see the bruising (on his face) where the tape had been," Robert Minton said.
The preliminary investigation into Joshua's death indicates that he may have suffocated, said Tulsa Police Officer Jason Willingham. The Medical Examiner's Office will determine the official cause of death.
The day-care provider, Vicki Leigh Chiles, 42, was being held without bail at the Tulsa
Jail on a complaint of first-degree murder.
Chiles told police that Joshua would not be quiet for nap time and that she used masking tape to bind his hands and cover his mouth to keep him quiet, her arrest report states.
Chiles, who had eight children at her day-care home, located at 2648 E. Third St., at the time, said she left the boy unattended for a few minutes and came back to find him unresponsive. She said she removed the tape, called an ambulance and attempted CPR, the report states.
Coincidentally, Oklahoma Department of Human Services workers came to her door while the emergency was unfolding, said Willingham.
The process of revoking Chiles' child-care license was already under way when the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office charged her Wednesday with abusing a minor.
The charge alleges that Chiles hit an 8-year-old child 10 to 12 times with a fly swatter on April 10. According to an affidavit in that case, Chiles admitted to hitting the child with a plastic fly swatter while chasing him around a room. The affidavit quotes Chiles as saying, "He had done something and I went way over the top."
DHS, which oversees licensing and inspections of child-care providers, issued an emergency order Thursday morning to stop Chiles from providing any further child-care service.
"When the felony complaint was filed, that expedited our process," said DHS spokesman George Johnson Jr. "The emergency order was issued the morning after the felony was filed.
"Two DHS workers went to execute the emergency order to cease operations immediately (on Thursday). They were going to stay until the facility was completely closed down," he said.
When the workers arrived, Chiles was giving Joshua CPR and had already called for an ambulance, he said.
"Our workers did what they are trained to do in a crisis," Johnson said. "They became child-care providers and worked with the other children in the home to calm them down and move them to a safe area to not expose them to further trauma.
"They obtained the provider's records to identify the parents of the children. They called the parents to pick up their children and explained the situation."
The Mintons said that when they left their two children in Chiles' care on Thursday, they did not know about the charge filed against her on Wednesday. They were shocked to learn of the allegations, they said Friday.
Robert Minton said that when he heard that something had happened to Joshua, he thought an accident had injured him or that the child had gotten sick.
When he arrived to pick up Joshua's sister, 4-year-old Heather, Chiles said nothing to him, he said. "All she said to Heather was, 'I love you, baby.' "
The Mintons said they did their homework before letting Chiles watch their children -- checking with DHS, doing a background check and checking references with other people who had youngsters in her care -- and that nothing raised their suspicions. They enrolled the children in her day-care home last summer.
"The kids enjoyed going there," Kathryn Minton said. "They would ask to go and see Miss Vicki."
The Mintons are struggling to cope with the loss of their youngest child.
"You had no right to take him from us," said Kathryn Minton. "That's all I can say to her (Chiles). You had no right."
As for her advice to other parents, Kathryn Minton said to "love your kids, because you don't know how long you're going to have them."
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