A trial date was set Wednesday morning for three of the four women charged in connection with alleged child abuse at the First United Methodist Church daycare.
After comparing calendars, Judge John Atkins and attorneys for former pastor Paige Williams and former day care workers Allison Simpson and Nina Morgan agreed upon November 15 for the trial, which is likely to last the entire week.
Judge Atkins says it’s expected that former day care director Abby Leach will settle her case in July.
He reminded attorneys that the trial date shouldn’t discourage any of them from attempting to resolve their own cases.
Superseding indictments for eight counts each of complicity to criminal child abuse against children under the age 12 were returned in April against Williams and Leach.
The indictments allege they “breached their legal duty to protect the minor children by failing to prevent Simpson and Morgan from intentionally abusing children. In each count, the victim is described as being under the age of 13 months old.
Simpson is indicted on 30 counts of criminal child abuse. All 30 counts are alleged to have happened between December 19 of 2018 and January 18 of 2019. Eleven of the counts are against the same infant and a total of eight children are listed as victims in all of the allegations.
Morgan is indicted for two counts of criminal child abuse.