Police Charge Daycare Worker For Allegedly Drugging Children

Authorities in Neenah, Wisconsin, on Thursday charged a longtime YMCA daycare worker with child neglect after she allegedly gave melatonin gummies to at least 10 toddlers without their parents’ permission, according to a criminal complaint.

Annalee Salas Nitz, who told police she’d worked at the Neenah-Menasha YMCA Child Development Center for nearly 15 years, faces one misdemeanor count of neglecting a child where specified harm did not occur in connection with alleged dosing that stretched from Aug. 31 to Oct. 14, according to WBAY News. If convicted, she faces up to nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine. (RELATED: Arizona AG Office Warns Parents Of Fruit-Flavored Cocaine Going Around)

“We don’t trust anyone anymore,” father Joe Boersma said after learning his young son was allegedly given the sleep aid at the center, the outlet reported.

The chief operations officer at the YMCA center called police Oct. 16 after another employee reported seeing Nitz pull a child’s pacifier out, place something in the child’s mouth and put the pacifier back in, according to the complaint. Days later, that worker found a small red gummy on the floor of the infant room and a bottle labeled “Kids’ melatonin” in a cabinet near the nap area — a violation of YMCA policy, the complaint states.

Investigators say subsequent review of surveillance footage showed Nitz repeatedly putting unknown items into children’s mouths, though the video wasn’t clear enough to distinguish gummies from something like raisins. None of the 10 sets of parents contacted by Neenah police had authorized melatonin for their children, and several reported their kids had recently seemed unusually lethargic, according to the filing.

During a Nov. 11 interview, Nitz allegedly admitted slipping melatonin to poor sleepers — sometimes mixing it into food — without parental consent and acknowledged she might have given it to every child in the room over several months. “I’m guilty of it,” she told detectives, calling the scheme “planned” but a “bad choice” and a “very painful and humbling lesson,” the complaint says.

Nitz is scheduled for an initial court appearance Jan. 6.