Starved babies' grandmother on trial this week

By Megan Matteucci

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A former Henry County school administrator is scheduled to be on trial this week on charges she covered up child abuse against her twin grandsons.

Christiann Zelek, 53, is charged with failure to report child abuse. Her trial is scheduled to start this week in Clayton County Superior Court.

Earlier this month, a jury found her daughter, Tessa Zelek, guilty of starving the babies to near death.

Police say Christiann Zelek found her daughter and the daughter's boyfriend, Jay McCart, unresponsive from prescription painkillers in November 2007. The couple was passed out inside their Lovejoy mobile home while their 13-month-old sons, Ashton and Avery McCart, were unattended in the next room, police said.

At that time, the babies, who weighed about nine pounds each, were so malnourished they could barely move, police said.

Christiann Zelek summoned an ambulance for her daughter and McCart, but not the babies – who needed medical attention, police said.

“Instead of calling emergency medical services, she called a family member in Fayetteville to come pick up the twins, specifically to keep police and state welfare from discovering the condition of the children,” Clayton Police Chief Jeffrey Turner said in 2007. “Then she cleaned up the mobile home before calling emergency medical services for the couple.”

Another family later took the babies to the hospital.

Police arrested Zelek several days later at Union Grove High School while she was teaching an early childhood development class.

School records show Zelek worked as the school system’s special education coordinator from 2000 to 2008 when she resigned.

Zelek told detectives in an interview that there was “nothing wrong” with the babies, according to police.

Zelek, who remains out on bond at her McDonough home, hung up on a reporter Sunday.

Her daughter, Tessa Zelek, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday. She faces up to 70 years in prison.

The babies’ father, Jay McCart is awaiting trial. He also faced up to 70 years in prison, but has opted to take a plea, which would carry a 15-year sentence, prosecutors said.

The children, who are now almost 3, are staying with their paternal grandparents. Guardians said the boys are a bit behind other children in their age group and a little smaller because they suffered brain damage from the malnourishment.