SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — If your child came home from daycare and told you they had been sexually abused, you’d take action right away.
That’s what a Watertown mother did after her 4-year-old said a man in the daycare had touched her inappropriately.
Then she found out a man on the sex offender list, unbeknownst to her, had been watching her child.
Police investigated and say they had a solid case against him.
Angela Kennecke: And you knew he was the daycare provider’s father-in-law?
Autumn Strichertz: Yeah.
Kennecke: Did you know he was a sex offender?
Strichertz: I did not, no.
Kennecke: Did you know his name even?
Strichertz: No.
According to South Dakota law, a convicted sex offender isn’t allowed to watch over children in a daycare, whether that daycare is registered or not.
But KELOLAND’s Angela Kennecke has discovered a case where a mother says that happened and that’s not all. It’s the subject of her latest investigation, “A Mother’s Cry for Justice.”
“It’s the investigator’s job is to put all the facts together, to put together the best case we can to really honor that survivor and then turn it over to the state’s attorney’s office and hope for the best that justice will be served,” said Chief Tim Toomey with the Watertown Police Department.
Coming up in Thursday night’s KELOLAND News Investigation at 10 p.m., we’ll look into a case of alleged child sex abuse and discover how this case hit a dead end, much to the dismay of investigators.
It’s “A Mother’s Cry for Justice,” tonight on KELOAND News at 10 p.m. CT.
