Police: Day Care Owner Left Children in Truck Unattended

It is a parent's worst nightmare. Trusting your children to a day care center, only to find out that your little ones could have been harmed or worse.

The Hartford Courant reports that two people were arrested after allegedly leaving three small children in a car while they shopped at BJ's Wholesale Club in Manchester, CT. Officers responded to a call through which they were told that the youngsters were alone in a truck, and were crying and screaming.

52-year-old Beth Rich and her fiance, 51-year-old Mark Babcock, were reportedly leaving the store and walking back to their Ford F350 pickup truck with the children inside when police arrived. Beth Rich runs Hennequin's Happy Day Care at her home in Coventry. The couple allegedly left three little girls, ages 2, 2 and 3, in the vehicle unattended. They told police they were only in the store for five minutes, but store tapes revealed that the couple had allegedly shopped for almost 30 minutes.

Rich and Babcock were released and are due in Superior Court on May 15, 2018. They face three counts of leaving children under 12 unsupervised.

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