LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Days after a 24-year-old daycare worker was charged with abusing three babies at Vanguard Academy, attorneys claim hours went by before the center notified parents their kids were hurt.
As of Wednesday evening, suspect Racheal Flannery is out of jail and on home incarceration after posting a $25,000 bond. Police arrested Flannery on Friday, Sept. 30.
According to court documents, detectives describe security video showing Flannery squeezing a child, swinging the child around and dropping the child onto the floor.
Alex White, representing two of the three victim's families, says the babies' initial brain scans came back clean. But there's concern over potential long-term effects.
"We're still talking about non-verbal babies who may have sustained some form of mild traumatic brain injury. That isn't something that necessarily shows up on a test," said White, who handles personal injury civil cases.
On Thursday, White told WHAS 11 his team is looking into what led up to the incidents -- which he says all happened on the same day -- and whether there were existing issues at the center that allowed the alleged abuse to happen.
"The parents still have questions as to why this happened and how this could happen, and we're going to find out," White said.
He says his firm has only received parts of the surveillance video from the day care. He says getting more information from the facility has been tedious and slow.
In fact, court documents show police responded to Vanguard Academy just before 9 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28. White says parents directly affected weren't notified by the day care until just after 2 p.m.
"What was really going on, not just this day, but in the weeks and months or years before," White said.
He tells us since the news broke, his office has received calls from several former Vanguard Academy employees and parents who pulled their kids from the program.
"[We ask] if they know anything about what the business model was like, what was happening here prior to this, was this a one time thing or was this a facility where something like this could happen?" White said.
Days after Vanguard Academy sent out an initial vague letter to parents calling the case "an apparent incident" they'd reported to authorities, WHAS 11 obtained a screenshot of a second email only sent to those whose infants had Flannery as a caretaker.
The email written by the daycare's director reads, "due to unforeseen circumstances, Ms. Racheal is on an indefinite leave of absence. At this time, we do not have information to give, but we will send out emails when we can."
The lack of specific details has frustrated families, even those indirectly affected, for days.
On the website for Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services, searches show the office completed an inspection at Vanguard Academy in Sept. 2021. It details a staff member smacking a child's hand, but it's unclear if charges were ever pressed.
For now, White says his team is working on piecing together evidence, while families hope the impacts aren't everlasting.
Per her home arrest conditions, Flannery is only allowed to leave to see her attorney.
She's due back in court for another arraignment hearing on Monday morning.
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Contact reporter Isaiah Kim-Martinez at ikimmartin@whas11.com. You can follow him on Twitter (@isaiah_km) and Facebook.