SMITH COUNTY, TX - Nearly a year after being arrested, a Texas day care worker is headed to prison for 10 years after pleading guilty to abusing several toddlers over 100 times over the course of several months.
On Wednesday, November 12, 45-year-old Catherine Guziejka was sentenced to a decade behind bars after she assaulted several young children between July and October of 2024 at the Punkin' Doodles Day Care Center in Lindale, Law & Crime reported.
She pleaded guilty back in September to injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily harm, according to court records. Richard Vance, Smith County assistant district attorney, said that Guziejka received the longest sentence a defendant can get for a third-degree felony.
Vance said the victims' families were fine with the sentence but were "frustrated" that it couldn't be harsher. Guziejka was not punishing the kids for misbehaving or because she was overwhelmed. She did it for "no reason." In an interview with ABC affiliate KLTV, Vance said, "They were just sitting still and quiet, and it happened. This wasn't just an instance of [there was] just a lot going on and [she] just lost it in the moment. This was just an ongoing thing for no reason."
Vance said that the children did not suffer serious physical injuries, but he worries about their long-term mental health. "It could be years from now and something [could] trigger them," he said. Guziejka's attorneys reportedly blamed her actions on her low IQ, saying it was lower than 80% of the population.
The investigation began in October 2024 when an employee at the day care center performed a review of the facility's security camera footage. During the review, the employee allegedly saw Guziejka kicking a two-year-old boy in the lower back while the child was on the floor.
The employee notified the victim's father about the incident on October 23, 2024, and the father immediately contacted the Smith County Sheriff's Office and filed a report.
Investigators then reviewed footage from the day care and said they uncovered evidence of Guziejka physically assaulting six different two-year-olds 134 different times. Many of the attacks on the toddlers involved a similar situation in which the victim was watching something on television when Guziejka would approach them from behind and kick them in the lower back using her right foot.
Other examples of abusive behavior that investigators reported seeing multiple times on the footage included Guziejka standing on the toddlers' hands, aggressively moving them around in their sleep, and grabbing a sleeping child by the arm and dragging them to the changing tables.
When changing the children, Guziejka would also regularly force the children to stare at the wall instead of the television on the opposite side of the room by aggressively holding the victims' heads down.
Melanie Dawn Law, the former owner of Punkin' Doodles Day Care, reportedly reviewed the security footage before speaking to police. During her law enforcement interview, she reportedly confirmed that Guziejka had been assaulting the children since July, with at least 100 different instances of abuse uncovered.
She said Guziejka, who was initially hired in September 2023, was fired immediately after the abuse was revealed, and all of the footage depicting the abuse was turned over to investigators.
On Wednesday, November 12, 45-year-old Catherine Guziejka was sentenced to a decade behind bars after she assaulted several young children between July and October of 2024 at the Punkin' Doodles Day Care Center in Lindale, Law & Crime reported.
She pleaded guilty back in September to injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily harm, according to court records. Richard Vance, Smith County assistant district attorney, said that Guziejka received the longest sentence a defendant can get for a third-degree felony.
Vance said the victims' families were fine with the sentence but were "frustrated" that it couldn't be harsher. Guziejka was not punishing the kids for misbehaving or because she was overwhelmed. She did it for "no reason." In an interview with ABC affiliate KLTV, Vance said, "They were just sitting still and quiet, and it happened. This wasn't just an instance of [there was] just a lot going on and [she] just lost it in the moment. This was just an ongoing thing for no reason."
Vance said that the children did not suffer serious physical injuries, but he worries about their long-term mental health. "It could be years from now and something [could] trigger them," he said. Guziejka's attorneys reportedly blamed her actions on her low IQ, saying it was lower than 80% of the population.
The investigation began in October 2024 when an employee at the day care center performed a review of the facility's security camera footage. During the review, the employee allegedly saw Guziejka kicking a two-year-old boy in the lower back while the child was on the floor.
The employee notified the victim's father about the incident on October 23, 2024, and the father immediately contacted the Smith County Sheriff's Office and filed a report.
Investigators then reviewed footage from the day care and said they uncovered evidence of Guziejka physically assaulting six different two-year-olds 134 different times. Many of the attacks on the toddlers involved a similar situation in which the victim was watching something on television when Guziejka would approach them from behind and kick them in the lower back using her right foot.
Other examples of abusive behavior that investigators reported seeing multiple times on the footage included Guziejka standing on the toddlers' hands, aggressively moving them around in their sleep, and grabbing a sleeping child by the arm and dragging them to the changing tables.
When changing the children, Guziejka would also regularly force the children to stare at the wall instead of the television on the opposite side of the room by aggressively holding the victims' heads down.
Melanie Dawn Law, the former owner of Punkin' Doodles Day Care, reportedly reviewed the security footage before speaking to police. During her law enforcement interview, she reportedly confirmed that Guziejka had been assaulting the children since July, with at least 100 different instances of abuse uncovered.
She said Guziejka, who was initially hired in September 2023, was fired immediately after the abuse was revealed, and all of the footage depicting the abuse was turned over to investigators.
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