Being a mom isn’t easy, being a working mom that is out of the house five days a week while someone else is taking care of your child is even more difficult. Choosing between family and career has been a long debate for many couples who embark on career/family and childcare.
We got a call one day from a frantic woman who explained she was an attorney in a large law firm and had just gotten out of a meeting where she learned from a co-worker’s nanny that she observed Katie’s little girl and her babysitter at the museum and the babysitter was on a bench texting on her phone and Katie’s daughter was running around and had been out of sight of the babysitter for several minutes at a time. Katie was shocked to hear her daughter could have been hurt or worse taken from the museum by a stranger. At the recommendation of her co-worker, Katie called and made an appointment with us, .
Katie was still a little uneasy when she arrived at our office. She explained she had hired her babysitter upon the recommendation of a friend who had used the babysitter prior to her children going to pre-school. Katie did not conduct any type of background check nor did she do any due diligence prior to hiring her as she came highly recommended.
Katie explained that the babysitter always took her daughter on outings once a week and how much her daughter enjoyed them. Katie also said her daughter was thrilled with the babysitter and there was never any indication her daughter wasn’t being taken care of properly. But the conversation she had had with her co-worker laid heavy on her heart.
We first suggested to act immediately and conduct a basic background check upon the sitter, we suggested to conduct surveillance upon the babysitter during their next outing, which was scheduled for the following Wednesday. In the meantime, Katie rented a covert clock radio with video and a covert phone charger that she could place in her house to see activity during the day. explained she could not record any audio as her state was a one party state and one party had to be aware of the recording.
The surveillance was scheduled and the clock and charger were placed in Katie’s residence. The babysitter and Katie’s daughter arrived at the museum and their activities were observed. The sitter held hands and interacted with Katie’s daughter until they got to the play area. The sitter sat on a bench and utilized her phone while the daughter ran around the room. The sitter would look up often and have eye contact with her, but continued to text on her phone. The Investigator observed the sitter lose sight of Katie’s daughter a couple of times and got up from her bench to see exactly where she was. At around 2PM, they left the museum and stopped by for an ice cream and returned home.
Katie brought in the SD cards from both the clock radio and the phone charger, which we downloaded and burned to a CD. Both SD cards showed a lot of interaction between the sitter and Katie’s daughter and a few times the sitter was on her phone.
Katie was given the information and the CD along with the background report, which did not show any type of criminal activity, she had a good driving history, and the reference check checked out and nobody had anything negative to say about the sitter. All it took was for Katie to have a one on one talk with the sitter to let her know that if Katie’s daughter was taking a nap it was okay for her to utilize her phone, but if they were outside of the house she should only use the phone in case of emergency.
Surveillance was a positive outcome in this situation and Katie was thrilled that he daughter was safe and she didn’t have to replace the sitter.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations
