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CRIME

Day care provider leaves 2 kids in towed SUV

Terri Sanginiti
The News Journal

Police say an unlicensed day care provider left two children unattended in a locked SUV that was towed, and it wasn't until the tow-truck driver reached the yard that he heard children's voices from inside the SUV and called police.

Tonya F. Robinson, 40, of the first block of Brittany Lane in the Brennan Estates development in Glasgow, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, said state police Master Cpl. Jeffrey Hale.

Robinson operates Beautiful Beginnings Childcare and Pre-School out of the house she rents in the middle-class community. State officials say she is not a licensed day care provider in Delaware.

The incident unfolded about 12:20 p.m. Friday in the Pencader Plaza Shopping Center near Newark. Police say Robinson left the two children, who are not related, in a vehicle parked in a tow-away zone while she ran into B.J.'s Warehouse. The vehicle, a 2007 Dodge Aspen, was towed away and repossessed.

According to police, the tow truck driver called them after the SUV was taken to All Hooked Up Towing at 80 Aleph Dr. in Newark. The 32-year-old driver said he didn't see anyone inside the SUV before he towed it because the windows were tinted. He opened the door at the tow yard to find a 5-year-old girl and a 231/2-month-old toddler in a booster seat, and immediately alerted police.

Robinson, meanwhile, finished shopping and returned to the parking lot to find her vehicle gone. She called police to report it. When troopers arrived at Pencader Plaza, they arrested her.

Hale said the two children were not injured and were turned over to a second day care provider, who reunited them with their parents.

Erin Winthrup holds her 5-year-old daughter, McKenna, near their home in Glasgow, on Monday afternoon.

Erin Winthrup, who lives down the street from the day care, said she first learned that something had happened to her child about 3:30 p.m. Friday when her husband got a call from state police.

Robinson's sister had returned their 5-year-old daughter, McKenna, about an hour earlier, saying only that Robinson's vehicle was towed. Winthrup said she normally picks her daughter up about 4:30 p.m.

"I was pretty surprised when the police called," an upset Winthrup said Monday. "I wasn't at first processing it at all. I thought the kids were in the store with her and didn't know she had left them unattended. She parked the car in a tow-away zone, locked the car and went inside B.J.'s."

Rebecca Earnheart, the mother of the toddler, said she got a call from a state police trooper shortly after 3 p.m. who asked her if she knew Tonya Robinson and inquired if Robinson had her kids. The trooper then asked if she was aware of what had happened.

"This was the most disturbing phone call I ever had," Earnheart said. "I told him that my husband was on his way over to pick them up now."

Robinson cares for Earnheart's nearly 2-year-old daughter and a 7-month-old daughter. The couple enlisted her services over a year ago when they moved here from Connecticut. Earnheart said they found the day care advertised on Craigslist.

After speaking with police, Earnheart reached her husband on his cellphone just as he was arriving at Robinson's home.

"He was flabbergasted," she said. "Tonya's sister told him that Tonya was out buying gift boxes when he asked where she was. They knew she was with the police."

Earnheart later found out that Robinson told troopers that "a woman named Jessa" was back at the house watching the other kids.

"I don't know anyone named Jessa," Earnheart said. "I don't know if she exists or if the kids were home by themselves."

She went on to say that Charlotte was in a booster seat and soaking wet when released to Tonya's sister. She worried that her daughter hadn't been fed that day and was in the same diaper that she sent her in with that morning.

According to court records, Robinson told police that she was "babysitting the children."

She said she had parked in a marked space earlier and went into the store with the two children to buy a Lazy Susan, then went to customer service to purchase an iPad and also needed a few boxes.

She said she returned to her vehicle with the children, then drove to the front of B.J.'s where she parked in a no-parking zone near the entrance, locked the vehicle and left the children inside while she went back inside to retrieve her packages.

When detectives asked her why she didn't use a shopping cart and take the children with her, Robinson replied, "she didn't think about it," police said in court records.

She said she lost sight of her vehicle while at the customer service desk and when she left the store, her vehicle was gone. A shopper told her that it had just been towed, police said.

Winthrup said she asked her 5-year-old daughter if she had gone into the store with Robinson and Charlotte, and she said, "No."

Both families said that Robinson had told them ever since they had been sending their children there, that she was "in the process of getting her day care license" and was scouting a larger location, they said.

State Family Services spokesman Joe Smack said unlicensed day care providers in the state pose unforeseen problems, and if the state is notified or finds out through other means that one is in operation, they will send a "cease and desist letter" to shut it down. If they continue to operate, they are referred to the state Attorney General's Office for prosecution.

"If someone is caring for another person's children, it's a day care," Smack said. "If they're doing this for remuneration, then they have to be licensed and go through all the Delaware licensing requirements for family day care centers, including criminal background check, hours of training, etc."

Robinson was released Friday on $4,000 unsecured bail. She could not be reached for comment Monday and did not return telephone calls.

She faces a hearing on the charges Jan. 7 in Family Court.

Contact Terri Sanginiti at (302) 324-2771 or tsanginiti@delawareonline.com.