Finding someone you trust to take care of your children can be tough. You never know what’s happening behind closed doors, but you usually trust that your children’s caretakers have their best interests in mind. In some cases, however, a caretaker displays such a shocking lack of judgment that you wonder how they ever got hired in the first place.
At Lil’ Blessings Child Care in Hamilton, Mississippi, a recent video went viral of a daycare worker using a scary mask to terrify some children who had misbehaved. In the video, an unidentified woman is seen wearing a mask of the serial killer Ghostface, the main villain in the horror film Scream.
While this would be horrifying enough on its own, the employee is seen leaning in close to the faces of a group of children sitting at a table and screaming. The children are visibly terrified, screaming and crying as the would-be adult in the room terrorizes them.
It’s a disgusting and gut-wrenching video that not only got the people involved fired, but actually resulted in criminal charges. After the video was released online, the state Department of Health and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation into the incident. The owner of the facility, a woman named Sheila Sanders, said that she fired those involved once she saw the video on social media.
“The people that did those acts are no longer with us,” said Sanders. “They were fired. I wasn’t here at the time and wasn’t aware they were doing that. I don’t condone that and never have.”
The investigation resulted in charges being filed against five daycare employees involved in the incident. Four of the workers were charged with three counts of felony child abuse eash: Oci-Anna Killburn, 28; Sierra McCandless, 21; Misty Sheyenne Mills, 28; and Jennifer Newman, 25. One woman, Traci Hutson, has been charged with two misdemeanors: failure to report abuse by a mandatory reporter and simple assault against a minor.
“As a dad and as someone who has great compassion for those who can’t defend themselves, I admit it was very hard to watch these videos today,” said Sheriff Kevin Crook. “It made me sick to my stomach to think of the terror those kids were enduring. It still does.”
Sierra McCandless later posted a video on Facebook identifying herself as the woman in the mask and apologizing for her role in the incident.
“It wasn’t meant to harm anybody and it wasn’t ill-intentioned,” she said in the video. “The teachers asked me if I would do it or if they could use (the mask) to get their class to listen or clean up . . . I’m not a child abuser.”
Jennifer Newman also posted on her Facebook page that she was the one who recorded the incident and did so to capture proof of what was happening at the daycare.
“I recorded to get the proof and then the video was sent to parents to show them how their child was being treated,” wrote Newman. “I did not video this for s–ts and giggles. It was not funny to me.”
The facility closed down after the incident and their license has not been renewed. While future children might be spared the trauma endured at Lil’ Blessings, those kids in the video will likely not soon forget what happened to them.
