Four additional employees of a Cobb County day care have been charged after a 2-year-old was left on a van for several hours earlier this month, police said Sunday.
A total of six employees of the Bright Achievers Pre-K center have now been charged.
Robin Horton, 49, of Powder Springs, and Dulce Lopez, 24, of Douglasville, were both charged with false statements and reckless conduct, Officer Alicia Hilton said. Jean Jeanty, 30, of Marietta, was charged with reckless conduct, and Brenda Neal, 44, of Douglasville, was charged with false statements, according to police.
On May 5, Zaryaha Emile was picked up near her home by a Bright Achievers van, according to her mother. But when the van returned to the Austell daycare, Zaryaha was left in the backseat and wasn’t found until more than five hours later, when a daycare employee was heading to pick up students from an elementary school, according to police.
After being told the toddler was found on the van, the center’s owner, Melinda Hamilton, did not seek medical help for the girl and tried to cover up the incident, police said.
“The driver described the child as ‘sweaty’ and the child’s clothing as ‘moist’ from having been in the vehicle for several hours,” Hamilton’s 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, 59, of Atlanta, was arrested three days later and charged with false statements, tampering with evidence and reckless conduct. She was booked into the Cobb County jail and released the following morning after posting $25,000, booking records showed.
On May 11, a computer technician was arrested for allegedly lying to police about removing electronic devices from the center, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Clement Samuel Udotong, 47, of Austell, was charged with obstruction. He was later released on $1,000 bond.
Horton, the director of Bright Achievers Pre-K, was arrested Friday night and released Sunday afternoon after posting $10,000 bond, jail records showed. Neal, a teacher at the center, was arrested early Sunday and released hours later on $10,000 bond. Their mug shots were not available late Sunday.
Neither Lopez, an assistant at the center, nor Jeanty, a driver for the daycare, had been arrested as of Sunday evening.
The state agency that monitors daycare centers ordered Bright Achievers to be closed during the investigation, but the daycare is appealing the closure and can remain open during the appeal process, according to Reg Griffin with the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning. The State Office of Administrative Hearings has scheduled the daycare’s appeal hearing for 1:30 p.m. Monday, Griffin said Friday afternoon.
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