Taylorsville day care employee arrested, accused of abusing young boy
By Pat Reavy
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TAYLORSVILLE (KSL) — A Taylorsville day care employee has been arrested and accused of abusing a 2-year-old boy in her care.
Juana Petatan Loyola, 67, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on Thursday for investigation of aggravated child abuse.
On Nov. 2, a mother dropped off her 2-year-old son at ABC Great Beginnings, which used to be called Tilley Time Child Care, 4579 S. 1175 West. She picked him up later that night.
The next day, after looking at her son more closely, she “found he had a cut on his lip, dried blood in his nose, and one of his top front teeth was broken and missing,” according to a police booking affidavit. When she asked her son what happened, he “told her one of the day care teachers hit him on a table.”
The mother went back to the day care center and requested to see surveillance video. After being denied the request, she contacted police.
On Wednesday, police were able to get a copy of the day care’s surveillance video. Although officers were only given 9 minutes of video, in the footage they observed Noyola “aggressively and roughly, hitting (the boy) in the head twice, and forcefully throwing him down. When (the boy) is thrown down, it appears that he hits his face on a chair and the interaction is consistent with how (he) said he was injured,” according to the affidavit.
When questioned, Noyola allegedly told police that she knows what she did was wrong.
“Juana said she knew she shouldn’t do things like this at the day care and had received classes from the day care teaching them things like this was wrong. Juana said she had disciplined her grandkids in the past and they had bled from the mouth,” the affidavit alleges.
The boy will need a root canal to fix the damage, police noted in the affidavit.
Last month, in a separate and unrelated incident, a Taylorsville woman who was an unlicensed day care provider, was charged with murder in connection with the death of a 5-month-old girl in her care.
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