FLORENCE, Ky. (WLWT) -Before a Florence police detective and inspectors with Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services began investigating Little Friends Childcare off Turfway Road Friday, Becky Weschler wondered, “What if?”
“They could have been hit by a car or bit by a dog,” Weschler said. “Some stranger … and there’s all this, so many woods around here.”
Weschler was driving home last night when she saw three toddlers, one possibly just a year old, behind the child care center, wandering along Drexel Avenue with no jackets on, in the cold.
“I was freezing just getting out of my car,” Weschler said. “To see them without a jacket, I’m like, ‘Wow.'”
Weschler quickly dialed 911.
Call to 911: There’s these three little toddlers out on the street, and I don’t know where they belong.
After 13 minutes, a day care worker emerged and ushered the children back inside.
That did little to comfort Weschler, who felt the worker was too nonchalant about what had happened.
“The worker looked maybe 20. Like, she wasn’t, like, ‘Oh my gosh, like, panicked,” Weschler said. “She was just ‘attitudey.’ Like, ‘How dare you’ kind of attitude and apparently didn’t notice they were gone. … I have three kids, and it just hurt my stomach that they’re in the road, how fast people go through there. And I’m glad they weren’t out in the middle.”
Weschler added, “It’s just sickening. Like, how could they not have noticed three children are missing from your care?”
WLWT investigator Todd Dykes stopped by the day care Friday, trying to get a comment from the owner. He was turned away.
But the owner did talk to WLWT Thursday night, saying she has suspended two staff members without pay.
Florence police have opened a child endangerment case. A detective will work with the Boone County Attorney’s office to see if anyone will face criminal charges.
