Every parent hopes that they can sit by their child’s side all day long but that is not always possible which is why babysitters and indeed babysitting services are an important part of every parent and baby’s life. You don’t always expect babysitters to be perfect, they could delay to feed your baby, fail to change a diaper or stay too long on TV and forget about the baby, but those are normal human mistakes that everyone could make. Some babysitters are outright evil though, which is why the internet is full of stories about babysitters from hell with baby cams now catching most of these horror stories. Here is a look at the 10 most shocking cases of evil babysitters in recent history.
Jolly Tumuhiirwe
Uganda is a third world country, so employee rights, especially nannies, are not exactly the best. However, even a poorly paid nanny is supposed to, at the very least, not try to kill an innocent baby. In 2014, Miss Tumuhiirwe, a 32-year-old was hired to take care of 18-month-old Arnella Kamanzi while the parents were working. One day the father noticed bruises on the baby and having installed baby monitors days earlier, decided to review the footage. The video was so horrifying, that he lost his mind and beat up the nanny who immediately filed charges against him for assault.
In the video, the nanny is seen force-feeding the little girl while screaming at her and even slapping her causing the baby to throw up. The nanny then threw the baby onto the floor and started beating her up before stomping her with her feet and even standing on the little girl’s back. The video was so sickening that the police dropped charges against the father and charged the nanny with attempted murder and everything else that could stick. The baby was treated and made a full recovery but the mother said the baby cried all nights for months.
Christine Falling
Every mother that hires a babysitter in the US prays that she doesn’t turn out to be a Christine Falling, one of the most notorious female serial killers in US history. Like most serial killers, Falling had a traumatic childhood and resorted to managing her stress by killing animals. She had epilepsy and poor mental development which meant that babysitting was one of the only few jobs she could do. Five babies died in her care but background checks were not digitized in the 80s which is why she continued getting jobs.
8-month-old Travis Coleman was her last victim in 1982 after doctors discovered that the injuries suffered by the baby could only be as a result of suffocation. Before Travis, Falling had killed 4-year-old Jeffrey Davis before killing 2-year-old Joseph Spring at the funeral of the former. She also strangled a 70-year-old man when she went to do home-keeping at his home. She committed 5 murders in total and said at trial that voices in her head told her to strangle the babies.
The Teens Who “Shut” A Crying Baby
The two schoolgirls from Danvers, Massachusetts, whose names and ages were not revealed made news headlines in 2017 after they posted a video on Snapchat while “shutting” the toddler. The baby was crying when the teens decided the most fun way to keep the baby quiet was to lock her inside a fridge. The worst part was that they shared the video on Snapchat. It wasn’t clear how long the baby stayed there but it was treated and recovered. The teens were arrested for assault, child endangerment and battery.
Yoselyn Ortega
50-year-old Ortega, a Dominican immigrant to the US was the cause of shock for New York and the whole world after she killed two children. Marina Kim, the victims’ mother left 6-year-old Lucia and 2-year-old Leo in Ortega’s care while going for swimming lessons with her 3-year-old daughter. Yoselyn Ortega turned on the little angels and stabbed them to death before trying to end her own life by stabbing herself in the throat. After her recovery, she denied knowledge of the stabbings and claimed innocence even when the graphic photos of the victims were shown to her. A Jury found her guilty of the murder and said she was angry because the employer told her to do more work at the apartment.
The Evil Nanny In The Elevator
Babysitting can be a lucrative business in most cities in China especially when the babysitting agencies give the nanny a high rating. One nanny with such high ratings in Zhengzhou China shocked the world in 2017 when footage of her almost killing a toddler was released. She had just picked up the baby from the mother and entered the elevator.
The baby is seen crying before the nanny gives it a warning. The nanny then turns, probably to avoid the cameras before punching the baby in the stomach multiple times. She continues punching the crying baby before violently shoving it into a baby chair. The nanny then smashes the baby’s head with her fists until the baby bends forward motionless. The nanny continues the abuse by violently shaking the baby in what appeared to be attempted murder. The footage was only discovered by building maintenance who shared it with the mother before the nanny was arrested.
The 8-Year-Old That “Shut Up” A Baby
Leaving babies in the care of teenagers is dangerous enough, don’t even think of an 8-year-old. In October 2015, Katerra Lewis, the mother of 1-Year-Old Kelci Lewis left her baby in the care of her roommate’s children aged just 2 to 8 years old. The two mothers went clubbing while the 8-year-old was left as the babysitter.
When One-Year-Old Kelci wouldn’t stop crying, the 8-year-old beat her up until she was “quiet.” When the adults came back, they didn’t check on the young ones until the next morning when the little girl was discovered to be dead. The mother was charged with manslaughter while the 8-year-old was taken to Juvenile detention.
Viktoria Tautz
34-year-old Viktoria Tautz was hired as a nanny to take care of 10-month-old Joshua Paul in Haringey, London in 2017. The baby’s mother had only left for 30 minutes when she received the call that her baby was seriously sick and in need of a doctor. The baby’s neck had snapped and he had suffered a severe brain injury resulting from dangerous and excessive shaking.
The police believed that the nanny who claimed the injury came from a horse-riding game shook the baby violently while trying to make it keep quiet. She was charged to four years in prison for manslaughter but that could hardly numb the parents’ pain.
Benjamin Evan Nelson
Getting a babysitter through an agency was supposed to be safe because the agencies perform background checks before listing caregivers but some bad apples still fall through, like this one. Evan Nelson was a sexual predator that managed to get himself hired as a babysitter through the website care.com which claims to be one of the largest caregivers agency in the world.
According to the family, the only crime Nelson had ever committed was parking his car in front of a fire hydrant. However, when the family in Multnomah County, Oregon hired him, he started predating on their two boys. The abuse went on from January to April of 2014 when Nelson was arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison on five counts of first-degree sexual abuse, sodomy and performing sexual acts on children.
Sean Sadler
Sean Sadler was sentenced to life in prison for murder, aggravated assault, and everything else the Birmingham court could stick on the 32-year-old for the crimes he committed against 21-month-old Lily Hanrahan in November 2017. Lilly lived with her grandmother and Sadler’s girlfriend was registered as the little girl’s special guardian.
She used to leave the girl in Sadler’s care but never knew that the man was beating up the little girl until the fateful day in November 2017 when the assault went too far. The police said that the babysitter beat up the child, kicked her in the stomach and shook her violently before throwing her against a hard surface. The child also had previous injuries that were already healing suggesting he had done this before.
Cody Feran-Baum
The events that led to the death of two-year-old Sophie O`Neill at the hands of Cody Feran-Baum in 2015 were so sickening that even the Hennepin County attorneys found it difficult to listen. Cody was babysitting Sophie, his girlfriend’s daughter when the two-year-old started crying. When she wouldn’t stop after the 17-year-old gave her food, Cody resorted to throwing the toddler on the floor and kicking her multiple times and even stomping on her.
When the baby turned blue, he gave her a bath before going to a neighbour telling them to call 911. He lied to the paramedics that the baby had drowned while in the bath which led to administering the wrong treatment. The little girl died from multiple organ failure. The trial was too hard for anyone including the offender who chose to plead guilty to everything and serve 25 years in prison for his crimes to spare everyone the pain the trial was causing.