Child Care Employees Allegedly Abused Sleeping Toddlers, Slamming Them Down During Nap Time
April 3, 2018Two former child care workers have been arrested in South Dakota where authorities suspect they abused several of the children in their care, sometimes slamming the toddlers down on mats during nap time and stepping on them as they slept, PEOPLE confirms.
At a news conference on Saturday following the Friday arrests, Sam Clemens of the Sioux Falls police detailed the accusations against Teresa Gallagher, 31, and 22-year-old Kenedi Wendt, who both worked at Little Blessings Learning Center in Sioux Falls.
Gallagher and Wendt, who were fired in February after they became the subject of investigation, are each charged with 25 counts of abuse or cruelty to a minor, but neither has had a chance to enter pleas in court.
Information on their lawyers, if any, was also unavailable as of Tuesday morning. They are each held in lieu of $25,000 bond and will appear in court later Tuesday for arraignment.
Clemens said on Sunday that detectives started looking into the women because a parent contacted Sioux Falls police after their son told them one of the women allegedly banged his head on a mat as he was sleeping.
Before long, police learned from other Little Blessings parents that their kids complained about nap time, Clemens said.
“The kids didn’t like nap time,” he told reporters, noting investigators thought that was concerning. But “it all made sense” after investigators analyzed security video from the center, which captured much of the alleged abuse.
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Clemens said in the footage, the children — who were ages 3 and 4 — “appeared to be sleeping” when the two defendants would allegedly walk up and “pick up the kids several feet off the ground” and slam them onto their sleeping mats.
At other times, Gallagher and Wendt allegedly could be seen in the surveillance video yanking kids by the arms and stepping on them — all as they slept.
Sometimes, Clemens said, the toddlers had their heads “banged around.”
“It was tough to figure out why this was taking place,” Clemens said. “All of it seemed to be happening just because.”
Nothing in any of the footage indicated any of the children had misbehaved prior to being abused, Clemens said.
In a statement on their Facebook page, the center’s operator, Volunteers of Americas, Dakotas, said it “immediately placed” Gallagher and Wendt on leave after a parent came forward in late February.
Center officials “investigated the concern, communicated with parents, and reported the matter to the authorities,” according to the statement, which added, “Volunteers of America, Dakotas has been providing quality childcare for nearly 100 years in our community. We continue to be committed to the safety and well-being of the children in our care.”