MCKINNEY, Texas — After a daycare worker in McKinney was charged by police for injuring three children, one family told WFAA that it reported that same worker a year ago after their child came home with bruises and scratches.
Jessica Joy Wiese, a former employee at the Joyous Montessori school, now faces an injury to a child charge and was booked into the Collin County Jail on Tuesday.
According to arrest documents, at least three infant children in her care were injured. One of those children suffered broken bones.
The parents said the child had 8 broken ribs, a broken femur, and both of the child’s ankles were broken.
When questioned by police, Wiese told investigators that she slipped and accidentally injured the child per court documents.
Those same documents say that police caught Wiese on video, “shaking the child up and down several times.” They also added that the shaking appeared to be an “intentional act.”
Police are reaching out to the families of any children who were under Wiese’s supervision between May of 2016 and December of 2018, according to a media bulletin.
One family with interest in talking to police is Olivia Taylor’s, a 2-year-old who was pulled out of the daycare last year. Her mother, Jane Taylor, said that Olivia was specifically taken out of the daycare because of Wiese. “I saw her mugshot and my heart just dropped,” Taylor said. “All of that stuff that went on with our daughter came back to me.”
Taylor told WFAA that Olivia would sometimes come home from Joyous Montessori with bruises and scratches to her face.
When she and her partner Angeline Muse confronted the daycare about it, they learned that each time Wiese was the caregiver in charge. “They all started to happen while she was in the classroom,” Taylor said.
In at least three incident reports that Wiese filled out from June 27 to June 30 last year, she explained some of those injuries.
Like a “scratch from a fingernail, sitting at a table.” Two times, on two different days, she said that Olivia got bumps on her head from hitting a shelf.
Taylor said that the injuries looked far worse. “It looked like she had been in a full blown fist fight,” she said. “We no longer felt safe keeping her there.”
Knowing what Taylor knows now, she said that she doesn’t know what to believe when she reads the reports again. “When I look back on it now, the way Olivia was acting and not wanting to go around Jessica---those were signs and I feel like we failed her by not pulling her out sooner,” Taylor said.
Taylor also told WFAA that the Department of Family and Protective Services looked into their concerns, but didn't find anything conclusive in terms of abuse.
The school does have a clean record, and McKinney PD said this is the first criminal complaint against the facility.
Wiese’s court records show several minor offenses between September of 2015 and January of 2017, including failure require school attendance, parent contributing to non-attendance and failure to appear in court.
Concerned parents of children who have attended Joyous Montessori are asked to call McKinney police at (972) 547-2710.
Editor's note: There are several joyous Montessori facilities in North Texas but each location is independently owned and operated.