Jury selection began Monday morning in the trial of Paige Williams and Abby Leach, the former leaders of the First United Methodist Church Daycare Center who are accused of “breaching” their protective duties involving former daycare workers Allison Simpson and Nina Morgan — who were each convicted in Christian County Circuit Court last year.
Circuit Judge Brian Wiggins of Muhlenberg County is hearing the case in Christian County Circuit Court.
Eight men and six women were chosen as the jurors with that total including two alternates.
Several jurors were dismissed for a variety of reasons including pretrial publicity, personal relationships with the victims, defendants, or attorneys, and having a family history of child abuse.
Opening arguments began shortly after 3 o’clock as special prosecutor Blake Chambers said Williams and Leach did not take appropriate action against Simpson and Morgan when they learned of the abuse involving children of eight families.
click to download audioChambers said they even received messages from family members to look at the video from the daycare
click to download audioDavid Bundrick, attorney for Leach, said his client began her employment at the daycare in 2001 as a teacher and was made director in June 2018. He said a short time later, Leach had a sit-down meeting with Simpson about the way she was handling the small children
click to download audioThe prosecution has alluded to a call a former employee made to the local Department of Community Based Services office concerning abuse at the daycare. Bundrick said not only is there no record of the call being made, but there is no record of a report being filed from the phone call which is required.
click to download audioThe attorney for Williams, Bill Deatherage, said his client didn’t change diapers of the children and was not part of the day-to-day operation of the daycare facility.
click to download audioThe first witness called to the stand Monday was former Hopkinsville Police Department Detective Travis Shown who testified that over 870 video files that made up 880 gigabytes in size but with no audio were extracted from the video from the daycare.
Judge Wiggins informed attorneys on both sides that he is scheduled to preside over a trial in Hopkins County next Tuesday and said trial days this week could go long into the evening in order to finish ahead of his next trial.
