A 19-year-old woman is charged with killing a baby girl at a Delaware child care center after the child would not stop crying , accordi...
A 19-year-old woman is charged with killing a baby girl at a Delaware child care center after the child would not stop crying, according to documents obtained by The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal.
Surveillance video at Little People Child Development Center in Bear, Delaware, shows Dejoynay M. Ferguson pick up the 4-month-old child by the front of her shirt and place the baby on a changing table, according to court documents.
Ferguson, of New Castle, Delaware, could then be seen putting her hands on the child's face for more than three minutes, the documents said. Ferguson was wearing latex gloves at the time.
\The child was "unresponsive and motionless" when Ferguson removed her hands from the baby's face. She then took the child and placed her in a crib, police said.
"After approximately 20 minutes Ferguson advised the owner of the facility that the victim was unresponsive at which time a call was made to 911," State Police Master Cpl. Michael Austin said in a statement.
Ferguson's initial story to police was different from what was seen on surveillance video, according to court documents. But after she sat down with investigators, Ferguson explained she grabbed the child by the shirt because the baby had become "fussy" and wouldn't stop crying.
State Police said the death occurred about 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the Bear location.
The Bear location is one of three operated by the business, according to the website, with other sites in Christiana and New Castle.
A person who answered the center's phone Friday morning, would not speak to a reporter about the incident but said someone else would. When the person was asked to identify themselves, the man hung up the phone.
The Office of Childcare Licensing has suspended the license of the center indefinitely.
Joseph Smack, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and their Families, said the Little People Child Development Center had no "noncompliance issues" noted in its May inspection. All of its employees, including Ferguson, had passed the required background checks, he added.
Ferguson, according to court records, had been assigned to the "infant room," which is where she picked the child up from off the floor.
According to the state's website, the child care center has reported one "facility injury" in 2019, 2018 and 2016. The state did not immediately respond to questions about what a "facility injury" means, and whether children were involved.
Ferguson, who is charged with first-degree murder, was being held at Baylor Women's Correctional Institution on Friday morning. Her Facebook profile shows she graduated in 2013 from P.S. DuPont Middle School, and later attended Howard High School of Technology.
At Howard, she was involved in the school's Legal Support Services career program, The News Journal previously reported.
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