Florida babysitter arrested for molesting 4-year-old girl after toddler told cops 'he hurts me all the time'
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA: A male baby sitter has been arrested on Sunday, August 2, after a four-year-old girl accused him of molesting her. The girl child reportedly told her mother that Braxton Upshaw touched her inappropriately in October 2019. The 19-year-old allegedly molested the child while her mother was at work.
According to reports, Upshaw watched two children of a woman two to four times a week from August 2019 until the alleged incident, which as reported by Leon County police happened last year in October. The mother said that the suspect babysat her children on October 7, 2019, while she was at work. However, when she came back, her daughter told her about Upshaw’s inappropriate behavior towards her. The child accused him of physically abusing her. The victim’s mother also claimed that the teen babysitter seemed "very anxious" while leaving.
It’s not clear when the mother approached police regarding the alleged abuse, but an arrest warrant for Upshaw was issued on April 22. For the investigation purpose, detectives collected samples from the toddler for a rape kit test. They also interviewed her when she told them, “He just hurts me all the time."
Later, investigators also interrogated Upshaw who denied the allegations and also claimed that his DNA would not be found on the victim or the toddler’s DNA would not be found on him. However, subsequently, DNA from the accused was also collected by the investigators. The samples have been sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Following his Sunday arrest, Upshaw was charged with lewd or lascivious molestation on a victim under 12 years old. He was booked without bond at the Leon County Detention Facility, however, on Monday, August 3, following a court hearing he was reportedly released without bail. Upshaw has been asked to wear a GPS monitoring device and is restricted to meet the victim and her family.
In another incident, a female babysitter was sentenced to 30 months for having sex with a teenager and had his baby. Leah Cordice had sex with the 13-year-old in January 2017 when she went into the boy's room where he was playing on his Xbox. A judge heard that she seduced the teenager by pulling his pants down and begging for sex. But Cordice denied all the allegations and instead claimed that the boy raped her.
Her claims were rejected by a jury at the Reading Crown Court and convicted her for sleeping with the teen at least five times. Judge Peter Clarke, QC, said, "Cordice asserted that the truth was that she had been raped by the victim on multiple occasions... It has understandably been urged on the court that psychiatric examination has found Cordice to be of borderline intellectual ability with an IQ of 70 to 85. I had and have difficulty with that assessment... I heard no indication from either Cordice or the victim that she held him in any particular affection, the evidence from at least one witness was of physical obsession and self-indulgence as opposed to emotional attachment."