Lexington day care worker faces more charges of hurting children, sheriff’s deputies say

A Lexington County day care worker who was previously arrested and accused of child abuse is now facing more charges, investigators say.

Shayna Nicole McKnight, 36, faces three counts of cruelty to children and two counts of unlawful conduct toward a child from her time at Windsor Academy at Old Cherokee Road, the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department announced Thursday.

McKnight was previously charged with inflicting great bodily harm on a child after a child’s leg was broken at Windsor Academy. Two other workers at the day care were charged with obstructing justice in the deputies’ investigation of that incident in April.

Investigators say they have since uncovered more evidence of abuse on the basis of video evidence from the day care.

“More abuse cases associated with Windsor Academy came to light after we announced the arrests of McKnight and two other employees in April,” Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon said in a statement. “As detectives reviewed security cam footage, McKnight can be seen putting children at unreasonable risk of harm due to her actions on five separate occasions in March.”

McKnight swaddled infants and positioned them so they were unable to move in a crib and on the floor, according to Koon. Detectives said McKnight would then leave the infants unattended.

“McKnight can also be seen on security cam footage pushing and striking children, and pulling the hair of an infant,” Koon said. “These actions led to the cruelty to children charges.”

Video footage also helped deputies identify the previous instance of abuse. That footage shows McKnight “forcefully” folding the child’s legs under the child’s body and flipping the child into a crib by a leg, the sheriff’s department said. The child can be seen on the video crying and unable to put weight on the leg afterward, when this was not apparent in the video prior to the incident, investigators say.

Two other Windsor Academy employees, Amy Marie Grice and Jeannie H. Locklear, were accused of attempting to delete the incriminating video after watching it, and then telling investigators that video of the incident did not exist, according to investigators.