After realizing a 2-year-old had been left inside a van for several hours, a Cobb County daycare owner failed to seek medical treatment and lied about the incident to the girl’s mother, according to police.
Zaryaha Emile was dehydrated, but not seriously injured, her mother told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. But Quantina Russell said she should have been told about the incident — and told the truth.
“I should’ve received a call as soon as it happened,” Russell said. “She contacted me about everything else.”
Russell’s two older children attended Bright Achievers Pre-K Center, located on Jefferson Street in Austell, and her youngest child started about three months ago. The daycare van picks up her children and brings them home in the afternoon, Russell said.
The morning of May 5 was no different. Zaryaha was picked up and rode in a car seat to the center. But according to employees of the school and investigators, Zaryaha was never taken off the van. It was at least five hours later when a different daycare employee found the girl in the backseat of the van she was driving to an elementary school. She told the center’s owner, Melinda Hamilton, an arrest warrant states.
Hamilton drove from the center to meet the van at a Floyd Road grocery store, according to Cobb County police.
“The driver described the child as ‘sweaty’ and the child’s clothing as ‘moist’ from having been in the vehicle for several hours,” the arrest warrant states. “The accused did not call 911, did not transport the child to a hospital or doctor, and told the driver not to tell anyone else that the child had been left in the vehicle.”
Hamilton also allegedly instructed a staff member to provide a false statement on the incident to state investigators, stating that the 2-year-old’s class had gone on a field trip in the afternoon, according to police. Hamilton told the employee to state that the child had been left on the van for 15 minutes, rather than more than five hours, and asked the staff member to erase video surveillance footage from inside the center, police said.
When the staff member refused to erase the video, Hamilton allegedly asked a technician to remove the camera, the arrest warrant states.
The child’s mother was also told the child was left in the van for 15 minutes, she told police. Another staff member told the mother her child had been left in the van much longer, and the mother took the girl to the hospital for treatment when her daughter was noticeably sluggish and unusually thirsty, according to police.
When Russell attempted to ask Hamilton about the incident, but was shocked when the daycare owner tried to bribe her with $1,000 and offered her a job. Instead, Russell pulled all three of her children out of the center and reported the incident to police.
Hamilton, 59, of Atlanta, was arrested Friday and charged with false statements, tampering with evidence and reckless conduct. She was booked into the Cobb County jail and released Saturday morning after posting $25,000, booking records showed.
Both the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, which licenses daycare centers, are investigating the incident, believed to be the fifth case this year involving childcare providers leaving children in vehicles. Last year, DECAL investigated 18 cases, a department spokesman said.
Zaryaha was treated for dehydration, but is now fine, her mother said.
“Every time I look at her, I thank God,” Russell said. “God is with my child.”
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