Lethal Dose

Daycare shut down after infants found crying in storage closet

A Tennessee father is defending a daycare operator accused of hiding children in a closet during a surprise inspection.

Joel Coe said he has been taking his 3-year-old son, Brodie, to Paulette’s Group Day Care home since he was a baby.

The daycare center is located in Lafayette, 50 miles northeast of Nashville in Macon County, near the Kentucky state line

He said the owner, Paulette Colter, was always good to his son and that she was devastated and misses the children.

“Brodie is just crazy over her. If she was abusing a child, why would my son be crazy over her? He wouldn’t want to come here,” he said.

Coe said Colter was good to all the kids and that she even built an elaborate playground in her back yard for them.

“It was so clean when I went in there that I would eat off the floor,” he said.

But the pictures told a different story.

State inspectors took the images Friday during a surprise check of Colter’s home.

Three crying infants were found in a utility closet next to a water heater and electrical box. Investigators said blankets had been pinned to the tops of the play pens.

Don’t know about you, but I’m guessing that anyone who’d eat off the floor in a day care probably wouldn’t think twice about hiding babies in a closet …