The four women facing child abuse-related charges that allegedly occurred at a daycare at First United Methodist Church in Hopkinsville appeared in Christian County Circuit Court for a pretrial conference Wednesday morning.
Allison Simpson is facing 30 counts of first-degree criminal abuse – child under 12 years. Her co-defendants’ former church pastor Paige Williams and former daycare worker Abby Leach are charged with one count each of first-degree complicity criminal abuse – child under 12 years, and Nina Morgan is charged with two counts of first-degree criminal abuse – child under 12 years.
The four women and their defense attorney’s appeared before Chief Circuit Judge John Atkins, who set a trial date in the case for April 26-30, 2021.
Simpson is accused of placing children in the daycare at First United Methodist Church, according to police “in a situation that may cause serious physical injury, causing torture, cruel confinement or cruel punishment”. Police said the incidents occurred between December 2018 and January 2019. Simpson was indicted by a grand jury in April 2019.
Williams and Leach were indicted by the grand jury in August of that year. According to the indictments, the two women “intentionally breached their legal duty to protect at least seven children who were being cared for at the daycare”. The indictments also allege “their breach of legal duty placed the children in a situation that might cause serious physical injury, torture, cruel confinement or cruel punishment at the hands of Simpson.”
During a pretrial conference in December 2019, Commonwealth’s Attorney Rick Boling advised Judge Atkins that another co-defendant, Nina Morgan, was also indicted on December 6th in connection to the case.
