Inset: Catherine Guziejka (Smith County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The day care where she allegedly abused multiple infants (KLTV).
A 45-year-old day care worker in Texas has pleaded guilty to abusing several toddlers more than 100 times over the course of several months.
Catherine Guziejka on Tuesday pleaded guilty to six counts of injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily injury, court records say. According to local ABC affiliate KLTV, Guziejka’s attorneys are asking for a sentence of 10 years for each count to be served concurrently. Sentencing is set for Nov. 12.
A probable cause affidavit obtained by Tyler ABC affiliate KSLA states that the multiple assaults took place between July and October 2024 at the Punkin’ Doodles Day Care in Lindale, Texas, which is about 200 miles north of Houston.
The investigation kicked off in October 2024 when an employee at the day care performed a review of the facility’s security camera footage. During the review, the employee allegedly saw Guziejka kicking a 2-year-old boy in the lower back while the child was on the floor.
The employee notified the victim’s father about the incident on Oct. 23, 2024, and the father immediately contacted the Smith County Sheriff’s Office and filed a report.
Investigators then reviewed footage from the day care and said they uncovered evidence of Guziejka physically assaulting six different 2-year-olds 134 different times.
Many of the attacks on the toddlers involved a similar situation in which the victim was watching something on television when Guziejka would approach them from behind and kick them in the lower back using her right foot, local CBS and CW affiliate KYTX reported.
Other examples of abusive behavior that investigators reported seeing multiple times on the footage included Guziejka standing on the toddlers’ hands, aggressively moving them around in their sleep, and grabbing a sleeping child by the arm and dragging them to changing tables.
When changing the children, Guziejka would also regularly force the children to stare at the wall instead of the television on the opposite side of the room by aggressively holding the victims’ heads down.
Melanie Dawn Law, the former owner of Punkin’ Doodles Day Care, reportedly reviewed the security footage before speaking to police. During her law enforcement interview, Law reportedly confirmed that Guziejka had been assaulting the children since July with at least 100 different instances of abuse being uncovered. She said Guziejka — who was initially hired in September 2023 — was fired immediately after the abuse was revealed and all of the footage depicting the abuse was then turned over to investigators.
Law spoke to KSLA and said that since the revelations of abuse came to light, she has sold the day care facility to a new owner who is going to reopen in December under a new name.
Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith told KLTV it was fortunate that none of the children were seriously injured by Guziejka, saying it has been limited to “minor to medium bruising.”
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report
