Three former workers at a prominent Alabama church daycare have been charged with child abuse.
Chief Deputy District Attorney C.J. Robinson on Monday announced the charges in what he called a “sickening” case.
Robinson, of the 19th Judicial Circuit, said the alleged abuse involved up to 11 children under the age of 2 at Journey Church of the River Region in Prattville. Seven of those children have been positively identified as victims, he said.
Those charged with one count each of felony child abuse and failure to report child abuse as a court mandated reporter are Alice Sorrells, Leah Livingston and Susan Baker.
All three previously worked at another daycare in the Prattville area that closed in December and moved to Journey Church of the River Region daycare.
The warrants were issued Monday morning.
The investigation began when a potential employee was shadowing the suspects and saw behavior that she thought was inappropriate, Robinson said. She went to the director with her concerns and the director contacted Prattville police.
“The director pulled the (video) footage for the last 30 days and the video showed multiple incidents of child abuse,’’ Robinson said.
The prosecutor said he has called a special grand jury to convene later this month, and said he expects up to 40 counts of felony child abuse between the three suspects to come from that grand jury.
Robinson said the videos showed shoving and striking of the children. The video available to dated back to Feb. 22.
None of the children sustained serious physical injuries.
“These are non-talking children, most of these are non-walking children, so they can’t go home and say so and so hurt me,’’ Robinson said. “We are relying solely on the footage we have.”
Robinson said he became emotional watching the videos.
“I cried. I hated it for these children. No child should go through that,’’ he said. “And then immediately after that I was enraged.”
“Since turning these people over to the parents of these children is not an option based off the oath I’ve sworn, then my job is to hold them accountable,’’ Robinson said.
The suspects had not yet been booked into the jail as of 2 p.m. Once booked, their bonds are set at $55,000.
“These people should go to prison for a long time,’’ Robinson said.
