Employees charged with abuse after viral video shows children at day care frightened by masks

HAMILTON, Miss. — Five people who worked at a Mississippi day care are facing charges after a video appeared to show employees using a Halloween mask to frighten children.

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Prosecutors filed charges against Sierra McCandless, Oci-Anna Kilburn, Jennifer Newman and Shyenne Shelton for felony child abuse, WTVA reported. Traci Huston was charged with failure to report abuse and simple assault against a minor, both of which are misdemeanors.

Several videos posted to social media appeared to show adults working at the Lil’ Blessings Child Care and Learning Center wearing a mask from the movie “Scream,” causing children to scream and cry, as we previously reported. One video appears to show the adults laughing about frightening the children.

The day care’s owner said she fired all the employees involved and reported the incident to the Mississippi State Department of Health, WCBI reported. The owner of the day care is not facing charges.

“It appears to us they were using the mask for behavior modification,” Monroe County Sheriff Kevin Crook told The Monroe Journal. “They can’t use corporal punishment, so we think they were using the mask to try to scare the kids into doing what they were supposed to be doing.”

Crook told WCBI that investigators met with parents of the children who were in the day care, three sets of whom wanted to file felony charges.

“I hope there is justice for the children, that at the end of this all the women involved are brought to light the damage they’ve done and the trauma to families, parents and children,” Katelyn Johnson, one of the parents whose children are seen in the videos, told WCBI.

The day care has been closed since the videos surfaced and the Mississippi State Department of Health suspended the facility’s license pending the outcome of an investigation into what happened, The Monroe Journal reported.

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