After their infant was killed in September, the parents of a 4-month-old girl from Bear, Delaware, are filing a lawsuit against a day care center where their baby was smothered by daycare worker.
Parents Cadell Talton and Amanda Livingston filed paperwork on May 4, claiming how The Little People Development Center was negligent to allow 19-year-old Dejoynay Mariah Ferguson to watch their infant daughter as she was unqualified. The news comes after Ferguson’s arrest related to charges she suffocated their baby girl to death.
On September 5,2019, Isabella Talton was smothered to death.
Ferguson was reportedly alone in the center’s infant room when she allegedly committed the act. Surveillance video that was taken at the time showed Ferguson picking up Isabella by the front of her shirt and placing her on a changing table. She then placed her hands on the child’s face for over three minutes before the baby became “unresponsive and motionless.”
Allegedly, the day care worker placed the baby back in her crib and waited 20 minutes before she alerted the owner that something was wrong with the infant.
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“At which time a call was made to 911,” Delaware State Police Master Cpl. Michael Austin said in a statement to Delaware Online at the time.
Unfortunately, Isabella did not make it. Originally, the daycare worker shared a different story than what the cameras showed but later confessed that she picked up the child to quiet her as she was “fussy.”
Ferguson was then arrested with first-degree murder after Isabella’s death. Talton and Livingston have since decided to take action against the daycare facility.
Isabella’s parents filed their lawsuit through lawyer Timothy Lengkeek, who spoke with the newspaper and shared how they are taking legal action so “this does not happen to another baby.”
“The civil suit against the daycare itself is the only way to hold them responsible for what happened to the baby,” Lengeek said. “The state’s going to prosecute (The Little People’s) employee, but the only way we can get accountability is to file a civil case against the actual entity itself, the corporation.”
The suit seeks damages based on multiple charges, including negligence and breach of contract.
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