Jury acquits day care provider in child abuse case

March 11--COLUMBUS -- A Platte County Court jury found a Columbus day care provider not guilty of negligently breaking a 9-month-old boy's leg after the woman had earlier pleaded guilty to telling two different stories to account for how the injury occurred.

The five-woman, one-man jury acquitted Stacy Taylor, who has operated state-licensed Taylor Tot's Daycare at 4908 35th St. for 12 years, of negligent child abuse stemming from the Jan. 29, 2016, incident that resulted in the child's right leg being broken.

The jurors deliberated for about an hour before delivering their verdict. Taylor pleaded guilty to false reporting in the same incident and was fined $1,000 by Judge Frank Skorupa.

Both charges are Class I misdemeanors, each punishable by one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The day of the incident, Taylor quickly called the boy's mother, Kristin Tomasevicz, at her workplace and told her she should pick up her son because he hurt his leg.

Tomasevicz, a teacher, cancelled her class at school and hurried over to pick up her son. The new mother recognized her son was in pain and took him to the hospital emergency room for treatment, which revealed the child's leg was broken.

Taylor Tot's, which remained open following the incident, is licensed by the state as a Family Home 2 facility caring for a maximum of 12 children, with a child/caregiver ratio of six to one. Taylor's husband, Bill, is also listed on the license as a caregiver.

Testimony during the two-day trial described an afternoon incident that occurred when Taylor was left alone -- Bill left the day care to pick up the couple's children from school -- to care for seven children.

"I was out of compliance (on the ratio) by one child," Taylor said during her testimony Thursday afternoon. She added that no parent of a child in her care had ever complained about her being out of ratio and there were no violations in her record with the state.

The prosecution maintained Taylor neglected the child's safety by being out of ratio on how many children she was caring for and how many caregivers were on duty at the time of the boy's injury.

The false reporting is based on the two stories she told authorities, which the prosecution contended was to avoid criminal responsibility for the child's injury.

The day care provider was also accused of initially misleading authorities about the circumstances surrounding child's injury, then calling police later to give a clearer report of the incident.

In her first account, Taylor said the boy could have been injured when his foot became stuck while she was trying to lift him out of a highchair. She said the boy was acting fussy and squirming and wanted to get out of the chair.

"He was crying and angry. I lifted him up and then put him back down," a tearful Taylor told the jurors. She said she then tried to feed him while sitting in a rocker, then set him down on the floor.

A couple of days later, Taylor called authorities to say she had omitted some information from her initial statement.

The second account, according to Taylor's testimony, was that she took the child out of the highchair and set him on the floor. Moments later, while she was holding another infant in her arm, she walked across the room to help another child in the bathroom.

When she walked back to attend to the victim child on the floor she was carrying another child in one arm and a milk bottle in the other hand. Taylor said she stumbled and stepped on the victim's leg.

The medical expert who examined the boy was skeptical of the day care provider's explanations for how the injury was caused.

Dr. David Rowher was called to the stand by the prosecution to describe the results of his examination of the boy's injury and offer an explanation of any possible causes.

The local pediatrician testified that X-rays revealed the boy suffered a mid-shaft spiral fracture of the femur in his right leg, an injury rarely seen among children too young to walk.

A spiral fracture requires one end of a bone to be anchored while the other end is being rotated with a twisting motion. The child was placed in a hip-to-foot cast for eight to 12 weeks, but did not require surgery.

"I saw him for a well-child visit in the last three months and he's on track for full recovery," Rowher said. The boy will turn 2 years old this spring.

The pediatrician said the injury was initially reported to him as being caused when the boy's leg became stuck while his day care provider was removing him from a highchair. He said he was later told that it might have been caused when the provider stumbled over the boy while he was crawling on the floor.

"If the leg was stuck in a highchair, I think it would have taken a strong twist rotation (on the leg) that would have lifted the highchair off the ground," said Rowher, adding that if the boy's injury had occurred by tripping or falling it would have required him to be walking.

The doctor was also puzzled about whether being stumbled over or stepped on could have produced a spiral fracture.

"The femur is one of the strongest bones in the body. It takes a lot to break it," Rowher said. "I've never seen a spiral fracture from being stepped on. There has to be that rotational component."

Tomasevicz described the events of that January day on the first day of the trial, and was thankful for Rowher's clear explanation of her son's injury.

Her son's OK now. His mom left her teaching job for a year to care for her son and will return this fall. She and her husband spent three days in the hospital with their son after the injury.

"I know the facts of the case were presented well," Tomasevicz said after the verdict. "We just hope it doesn't happen to any other child."

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