Amanda Hickey: Georgia daycare owner charged with infant's murder dropped a baby upside down, yanked a toddler
DUNWOODY, GEORGIA: A woman who ran a Dunwoody daycare has been charged with murder of a four-month-old boy and has been accused of abusing other infants in her care, according to a DeKalb County prosecutor. A four-month-old baby died in Amanda Hickey's daycare after being put down for a nap in a playpen. While Hickey told police officers that she put the baby to sleep on its back as she had been trained, video surveillance showed her putting the baby down on its stomach.
Hickey was charged with murder and child cruelty after a four-month-old baby died at Little Lovey Daycare, which she operated out of her home. Police who responded to the scene found the baby unresponsive in a playpen. Hickey was charged with first-degree felony murder and two counts of cruelty to children in the second degree in the infant's death, according to WSB-TV.
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Hickey, who was originally arrested on February 5, two days after the infant's death, reported the unresponsive child herself and said the child was sleeping in a crib for a nap and was later found unresponsive. However, the following day, the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) received a complaint from the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) about a child's death at the same location, according to 11Alive.
Prosecutors also charged Hickey with additional warrants based on video recordings from within the daycare on the same day as the child's death, according to a Dunwoody police officer. The warrants describe separate incidents involving four other children and were obtained by 11Alive.
In one warrant, Hickey is accused of holding a seven-month-old child with one hand by the child's leg and letting go of him while he was upside down. The investigator wrote in the warrant, "The infant then falls onto his face and head into the bottom of the pack and play."
In a second warrant, Hickey is accused of handing a 14-month-old child with force on two occasions. In the first incident, she grabbed the child by the shoulder, according to the warrant, and "forces the infant to lay down, by shoving her forward where the infant's face hits the mesh wall of the pack and play. This was done with such force the pack and play shifts." In another incident involving the same child on the same day, Hickey is accused of grabbing a "fist full" of the child's hair and forced the “infant to lay down by pulling the infant by the hair forward and downward. The infant strikes the bottom of the pack and play.” The defendant is also seen “carrying the infant by the neck and arm causing the infant’s face to turn red.”
In the third warrant, Hickey is accused of picking up a 10-month-old by one arm while feeding him and setting him on the floor in front of her "with force," as the child lands on his side. The officer then describes Hickey lifting the child off the floor by one arm again, swinging him forward, and releasing him, "causing the infant's head, neck and upper back to strike the hard surface. It's obvious the child is screaming at the time.”
A fourth warrant states that Hickey picked up a six-month-old child with her hands under the infant's armpits, raised the child up, and shook the child in an "up and down motion." She is accused of then dropping the infant into a bouncer and then dropping a blanket on top f the bouncer and infant. The warrant then states, "The infant is left there crying."
A judge denied bond for Hickey on Thursday, February 18, saying the seriousness of the case and pending charges could make Hickey a flight risk.