Day care driver found guilty in death of 1-year-old forgotten in hot van, officials say
A 1-year-old died after she was left in a van outside her Nebraska day care on a hot summer day last year, authorities said.
Now, former day care driver Ryan Williams, 62, has been found guilty of negligent child abuse resulting in the death of Ra’Miyah Worthington, according to a copy of the May 23 court transcript provided by WOWT.
McClatchy reached out to Williams’ attorney on May 24 for comment but did not immediately hear back.
The girl died after being left in a van for almost six hours as temperatures neared triple digits on Aug. 21, 2023, McClatchy News previously reported.
On the morning of Ra’Miyah’s death, Williams was driving children to Kidz of the Future Childcare when he said he was distracted by a child who was refusing to get out of the van, Kearney Hub reported.
After getting that child out, Williams closed the door and did not return until 2:50 p.m. when he came back to prepare the van to take the kids home, according to KETV.
Williams found the toddler unresponsive on the van floor, took her inside, and called 911, KMTV reported.
The toddler was pronounced dead at a local hospital later that afternoon, according to KLKN.
Her cause of death was hyperthermia, and she was reported to have an internal core temperature of 109 degrees, according to Kearney Hub.
Williams said he “made the biggest mistake of my life” in an interview with authorities, KETV reported.
“This finding does not mean that Mr. Williams is a horrible person or a bad person,” Judge Peter Bataillon said as he announced the guilty verdict. “This means that you made a horrible mistake that day.”
Bataillon noted the day care’s failures to implement systems that would have prevented such a tragedy as “absolutely incompetence,” according to the court transcript.
Still, “the failure to check or sweep the van to make sure all ten children were out of the van was a gross deviation of the standard of conduct assigned to Mr. Williams,” Bataillon said, according to KETV.
Williams’ sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 22, according to court records.
This story was originally published May 24, 2024 at 6:25 PM with the headline "Day care driver found guilty in death of 1-year-old forgotten in hot van, officials say."
