2 Charged After Child Left Alone In Day Care Van For Hours

UNION CITY, GA -- As the investigation continues into the case involving a 6-year-old child left alone on a bus for hours, Fulton County law enforcement officials have charged two day care workers with reckless conduct, Patch has learned.

The incident began Tuesday at A Step of Faith, a child care center in Union City, which two of Lavetta Kitt's sons attend. When the mother went to pick them up after work, only her 4-year-old was there. Her other son, Nicholas, was nowhere to be found, she told local media.

Workers usually pick up her two sons from school and take them to the learning center, until Kitt can come get them around 11:30 p.m. -- but this time, there was a grave mistake.

“When I realized my son wasn’t there, I thought the worst. All these kids are coming up missing, somebody has my child,” she told WSB-TV.

Kitt said she asked workers at the learning center, which operates 24 hours a day, where Nicholas was and was told the boy never got on the van after school.

“Five or 10 minutes later, I called the police and they came and took my statement,” Kitt told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kitt said when the day care's owner, Deborah Payne, arrived, she went straight up to the van and found Nicholas inside.

The boy told his mother that he had fallen asleep and when he awoke he waited so as not to get in trouble.

“Nicholas has a disability, so he doesn’t know what to think of this,” Kitt told the AJC. “He didn’t think anything was wrong.”

Kitt said the incident frightened her in light of the times. She has taken her children out of the center.

Payne, the day care owner, said that the center had policies in place that should have averted the ordeal. She has suspended the two workers.

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