Daycare owner and worker deny ‘hiding 26 sweaty and thirsty kids with wet and soiled diapers behind fake basement wall’
A DAYCARE owner and employee have denied accusations they hid 26 sweaty and thirsty children with dirty diapers behind a fake basement wall last year.
Carla Faith, the owner of Play Mountain Place in , and worker Katelynne Nelson both pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to misdemeanor charges.
that the daycare was housing more kids than its license allowed.
Investigators visited the property and, at first, didn’t find any .
But when they found the owner, they heard noises downstairs — and allegedly found a fake wall that hid the entrance to the basement.
There, officers claim they and said to have had dirty diapers and were sweaty and thirsty.
Play Mountain Place was one of two daycare facilities Faith owned, KOAA-TV.
Her daycare license allowed her to care for up to six children, and two of them could be under the age of two.
One parent whose child was found inside the daycare : "I was one of the first two parents who were on the scene and would never have believed the state of things if I had not seen it with my own eyes.”
The anonymous parent said that her “experience had always been dropping off and picking up my child in a clean, pristine, and loving environment.”
“Yesterday, I picked my child up from a small, dingy room in a basement that I had never before seen where 26 children were crowded together amidst empty juice box containers, graham cracker crumbs, and various children's blankets and lovies.”
“The room smelled of unchanged diapers and several of the kids were crying- everything was the exact antithesis of everything I had been led to believe my child was experiencing during the days they spent at Play Mountain.”
The parent said they hoped it was a “one-time thing,” but saw cubbies with kids’ names on them in the corner.
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In addition to misdemeanor child abuse, Faith has also been charged with attempting to influence a public servant.
Nelson was also charged with after cops found a backpack with “a folded piece of paper with three syringes inside and two plastic baggies containing what later tested positive as methamphetamine.”
Their trial is scheduled to begin in October.