Daycare Owner Rebecca Anderson Tied Children To Chairs And Kept Them In A Dark Closet, Police Say

Texas daycare center owner Rebecca Anderson allegedly punished children by tying cotton shoelaces around their necks to limit their movements, keeping them strapped into car seats as she imprisoned them in a dark closet, and tried to keep them quiet by giving them prescription medication, authorities recently reported.

According to the Washington Post, the 60-year-old Anderson, who owns Becky’s Home Child Care in Mesquite, Texas, was charged with nine counts of endangering a child as she admitted to authorities that she tried to make the children stop crying and “make [her] job easier” by giving them Tylenol, then confining them for a maximum of seven hours a day.

Citing Rebecca Anderson’s arrest warrant, People wrote that police were made aware of the alleged abuse on Friday, after a man and his wife set up a video camera on their 6-month-old son’s car seat before dropping the child off at Anderson’s daycare center. The couple contacted police after the video showed Anderson “yanking” the infant from his car seat by his ankle and separately pulling him up with force with the bib around his neck. According to court records, Anderson was also seen on the video injecting the child with a syringe and administering an unknown substance even if he does not need any form of medication.

The court documents also revealed what police supposedly found when they searched Rebecca Anderson’s Mesquite home on Friday — nine children who were imprisoned inside a bathroom and a bedroom closet, both of which had the doors closed and the lights turned off. The children were reportedly found while still strapped into car seats, with the padded inserts seemingly removed from some of the seats.

As further noted on the documents, “at least some” of the children were found to have cotton shoelaces around their necks that were tied so tight that authorities had to “cut [the children] free from their seats.” This was supposedly done so that Anderson could limit the children’s movement.

Rebecca Anderson has 5-star reviews, but the arrest warrant that says infants/toddlers in her care were given Tylenol & strapped to car seats for hours with ties around their necks. https://t.co/mbLBXTymNi pic.twitter.com/4wOJ85YkW5

— NBC DFW (@NBCDFW) September 18, 2018

“[Anderson] tied the ligatures onto the victims in order to limit their movement and prevent them from reaching the latching mechanisms and being able to get out of the seat,” the documents stated, detailing what police were told when they questioned the daycare owner about the alleged abuse.

When asked by authorities about the substance she injected on the video, Rebecca Anderson initially said she was not administering any medication, according to the Washington Post. She did, however, eventually admit that she had “probably given [the children] Tylenol,” the court documents indicated.

According to People, Anderson is currently being held in the Dallas County jail, with bond set at $45,000, or $5,000 for each of the nine charges of criminal negligence filed against her. She is also being held on a separate $10,000 bond for one charge of injury to a child with intent to inflict bodily harm, the publication added.