A 2-year-old girl was lost by BeYOUtiful Beginnings and made it all the way to the middle of a high-traffic, four-lane road before anyone at the Fort Worth daycare realized she was gone.
WFAA recently covered The Button Law Firm’s lawsuit on behalf of Felisha and Travae Jones, sharing Fort Worth police records and body-camera footage that showed the distance their daughter traveled after leaving the daycare unnoticed and how the daycare responded once strangers traced her back.
Russell Button described the danger during his interview with WFAA: “This little two-year-old went wandering through the parking lot unnoticed, down an alleyway, down a big grassy hill, and went into the middle of a four-lane road.”
At two years old, she could not understand traffic or protect herself from an approaching vehicle. Had two men not seen her when they did, this could have ended tragically.
WFAA Body-Camera Footage Shows How the 2-Year-Old Was Traced Back to the Daycare
The Button Law Firm provided WFAA with Fort Worth police body-camera footage from the day the little girl was found. One of the men who stopped to help stayed with her and called police while the other searched nearby businesses, trying to figure out where she belonged.
When he eventually reached BeYOUtiful Beginnings, staff confirmed the toddler was supposed to be in their care. No daycare employee had been outside searching for her because the daycare had not realized the 2-year-old was gone.
By that point, strangers had already found the child, gotten her out of the road, contacted police, and traced her back to the daycare before anyone responsible for her care knew she was lost.
“We dropped our daughter off at BeYOUtiful Beginnings believing she was safe,” Felisha and Travae Jones told WFAA. “Instead, we got a call from the police telling us our 2-year-old had been lost by the daycare and was found alone in the middle of a high-traffic road.”
The Daycare Knew Children Could Get Out of the Safety Straps
WFAA’s report also included body-camera footage of a daycare worker explaining the use of a Velcro safety rope to move children between the daycare and its detached playground. The worker acknowledged that children knew how to remove themselves from the straps.
When an officer asked, “Do a lot of them take it off?” the employee answered, “Yeah.”
That admission adds even more weight to the daycare’s failures in supervision. If BeYOUtiful Beginnings knew toddlers could detach themselves from the walking rope, then careful supervision, accurate headcounts, and name-to-face checks were even more crucial.
Those safeguards were supposed to make sure every child made it safely from one area of the daycare to another. Instead, BeYOUtiful Beginnings lost a 2-year-old and did not realize she was gone until after strangers found her in the road.
State Investigators Issued Five Citations After the Daycare Lost Her
WFAA reported that Texas Health and Human Services issued five citations against BeYOUtiful Beginnings following the incident.
Those violations involved supervision, caregiver responsibilities, and keeping children properly accounted for.
Headcounts and name-to-face checks are not just boxes for daycare employees to check. They answer two basic questions every daycare should always be able to answer: Which children are here, and who is responsible for each one?
When those safeguards fail, children pay the price.
WFAA’s Reporting Brings More Attention to What Happened to This Family
Coverage like WFAA’s matters because parents deserve to know when a daycare loses a child entrusted to its care.
The police body-camera footage gave families a closer look at what officers learned that day, including the daycare’s known problems with the Velcro safety rope and the fact that the 2-year-old had traveled far beyond the facility and into a high-traffic road before anyone knew she was missing.
It also gave Felisha and Travae an opportunity to publicly ask the question that still sits at the center of this case: “How do you lose a 2-year-old and not even realize she’s gone?”
That is the question the Jones family is still seeking answers to more than a year later.
At The Button Law Firm, we represent kids in daycare and child injury cases to help them get life-changing results and justice against bad daycares, schools, and companies that abuse and neglect the safety of children.
If your child was lost, left unsupervised, or seriously injured at a Texas daycare, call 214-699-4409, email intake@buttonlawfirm.com, or use our contact form to share what happened.
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