With the child abuse trial set to begin Monday for former First United Methodist Church pastor Paige Williams and former daycare director Abby Leach, several issues were discussed during a hearing Thursday morning in Christian Circuit Court.
Williams and Leach are accused of failing in their legal duty to protect children in their care from abuse by former daycare worker Allison Simpson, who was convicted last month of 12 counts of first-degree criminal abuse and 12 counts of third-degree criminal child abuse. All of the victims in the case are infants, under one-year old.
Special prosecutor Blake Chambers intends to call a witness to testify at trial, who will say she reported possible abuse at the daycare based on noises she heard months before Simpson was ever arrested, but the Cabinet for Health and Family Services did not do anything with the information because the caller didn’t have details on the name of the victim or abuser.
Calls to the reporting line were not recorded at that time so there’s no official record of the calls, which will be stipulated to the jury by the judge at trial.
Chambers told attorneys he’s edited a recording of Williams talking to parents of children in the daycare after Simpson was charged and while he was able to take out members in the audience in most, there’s one recording where it wasn’t possible.
Chambers has said Williams admits to mistakes in the recordings, though attorney Bill Deatherage has disagreed with that assessment.
Judge John Atkins said he is not inclined to allow any mention of verdicts and sentences for Simpson and former daycare worker Nina Morgan during the upcoming trial, though he’ll look at any case law attorneys want to present if they wish to present that information.