Day Care Workers Charged With Child Abuse After Scaring Children With ‘Scream’ Mask

Four former day care center employees in Mississippi have been charged with felony child abuse in connection with videos that showed an employee in a Halloween mask scaring young children. Another former employee was arrested on two misdemeanor charges.

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The mask was similar to that of the serial-killer character in the “Scream” movies. The individuals were identified as Sierra McCandless, Oci-Anna Kilburn, Jennifer Newman, Shyenne Shelton, and Traci Hutson.

Workers at Lil’ Blessings Child Care & Learning Center in Hamilton, Mississippi, were trying to put a scare into some kids who they thought had been “bad”. The troubling clip prompted the state Department of Health and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office to launch an investigation, which ended in five people being charged

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The facility’s owner, identified in state documents as Sheila Sanders, previously told the Monroe Journal that she fired those involved after learning about the incident.

The videos from the daycare were filmed on two separate days, one in September and one in October, but daycare owner Sheila Sanders was not present at the time and claimed she was unaware of either incident until the videos blew up online.

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“The people that did those acts are no longer with me,” Sanders said. “I do not condone that. I just wanted to say that it is being taken care of.”

In the viral video, a day care worker wearing a mask can be seen terrorizing children who are screaming and crying and even paralyzed with fear. "Are you being bad? Do I need to take you outside?" the masked day care worker can be heard screaming into the face of a small child as they try to bury their face in their arms on the table.

In another moment, the woman in the mask can be seen bending down and shrieking in a crying child's face as she shakes in fear.

"We are supposed to be cleaning up, monster," the woman who is filming the video can be heard at one point prompting the woman in the mask who continues stalking the crying and screaming children.

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At one point a boy can be seen running away while the woman in the mask chases after him as she screams inches from his face.

Several people who viewed the video said online that they were disturbed by what they saw.

“I can’t believe they torture babies this way,’’ wrote one user on Facebook. “This is disgusting.”

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Sheriff Kevin Crook of Monroe County said he was disturbed by the videos.

“As a dad and as someone who has great compassion for those who can’t defend themselves, I admit it was very hard to watch these videos,” he said in a Facebook post earlier this month, when his department began an investigation.

One worker, who referred to herself as CeeCee, has claimed the act was not “ill-intentioned.”

“It wasn’t meant to harm anybody and it wasn’t ill-intentioned,” she said in a video shared on Facebook

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“The teachers asked me if I would do it or if they could use (the mask) to get their class to listen or clean up. I’m not a child abuser,” she said, adding that she made her plan of scaring the kids known to other staffers but failed to disclose it to Sanders.

On Thursday, the four employees facing felony charges appeared in court, Sheriff Crook said. Bonds were set at $20,000 for Ms. McCandless and Ms. Kilburn and at $15,000 for Ms. Newman and Ms. Mills.