NEW BERLIN, Wis. — There are a lot of questions after a four-month-old was found unconscious at a New Berlin daycare and later died. It's a daycare document shows was not licensed.
TMJ4's Steve Chamraz has been reporting on an illegal daycare since 2011, and this is at least the ninth one where a child has died.
In Wisconsin, in-home daycares operate largely off the radar of regulators. However, when a child dies, state investigators start asking questions. That's exactly what happened in this case too at CJ's Day Care.
CJ's Day Care is run out of a woman's home in New Berlin. We're not naming the owner at this time since she hasn't been charged with a crime.
On Thursday, we know a letter was sent to the owner from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families stating she's operating CJ's Child Care without a license and needs to "immediately stop providing child care."
Documents show CJ's Child Care had seven children under the age of four, in addition to two other kids related to the owner, which is against the law for an unlicensed facility.
A quick Google search of CJ's takes you to a website called "New Berlin Family Child Care" which includes the daycare's information. It's information TMJ4 has since learned is not true since CJ's did not have a license with the state.
Also on that site are two other daycares. We called both. The first one sent me to voicemail, but a woman answered at the second.
The woman on the phone wouldn't answer our questions, told us we were being recorded, and that there was no one able to talk with us.
So we went back to CJ's Child Care.
A child's car seat and trash bag sat outside the seemingly empty home where no one answered. We also called the owner, left a voicemail, and haven't heard back.
Typically, the state has information online for daycares that are licensed, have been in the past, or ones that were revoked. Records for CJ's Child Care, don't exist.
We've reached out to several family members of the boy who died and haven't heard back.
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