The owner of a North Carolina daycare is facing charges after police say she left children alone in a park before recklessly throwing them in her car last month.
According to the Charlotte Observer, 43-year-old Leslye Denise Torrence is facing six misdemeanor child abuse charges in connection with a February 21 child neglect incident. Torrence is the owner of Midwood Learning Academy in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood in Charlotte.
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department incident report indicated that a witness told police she spotted several unattended children at a park in the 2100 block of North Davidson Street. The witness also told one of the children’s mothers that she smelled marijuana emitting from a car where two adults sat, while the children played outside.
The report indicated that the children were 3 and 4-year-olds.
The witness told police that they later spotted the defendant being reckless “with the children unsecured in the vehicle,” as she drove away from the park.
Video obtained by WBTV captured the “bone-chilling” moment Torrence allegedly drove away from the park with the children “thrown into the backseat” without car seats or seat belts.
The witness confronted two adults in the car before they drove away with the children.
“It just makes you question everything, and it makes me seriously question the environment she’s been in,” one of the children’s mothers told WBTV. “It is my opinion that they should not be allowed to care for other children.”
Another mother told WSOC-TV that her child attended the daycare but she didn’t know that the children were being taken off-campus.
“You can see the teachers driving off in the car with the back door wide open, no kids buckled in, my daughter splayed across all the kids’ laps and they’re peeling out,” the mom said. “And it looks like she’s about to fall out of the car.”
“I also had a bunch of moms and nannies in the area contact me saying over the past few weeks and months they’ve noticed this same group of kids at various parks, specifically at Cordelia and Veterans [Park].”
The mother added that she filed a complaint with the North Carolina Department of Health of Human Services. The daycare has subsequently been shut down.
Torrence is scheduled for a court appearance on April 9.
Check back for updates.
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[Feature Photo: Leslye Denise Torrence/Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department]
