Illegal daycare owner faces parents in court, detective testifies no cause of death of 3-month-old baby

By Marissa Sulek

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    NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) — For the first time since they dropped their babies off at an illegal at-home daycare, parents saw the woman who left their six children alone in her Bellevue apartment. A three-month-old baby was also found dead inside.

Wednesday, Anne Jordan, sat crouched over and sobbing for an hour in front of her former clients in a Davidson County courtroom.

One of the parents, Martin Ryan, testified he texted Jordan he was coming to pick up his daughter on April 10 and it never went through. He said he drove to Jordan’s Avana Lexington Apartment in Bellevue where he found another mom outside the door, and the two of them walked in.

“I saw the crying baby in the high chair, there was another baby in a bouncy seat in the living room, there were two other babies – a little under one year – lying under an activity gym awake in the living room,” said Ryan.

“I then went and checked every bedroom and bathroom for the caregiver, including the nap room where my oldest daughter was sleeping, and another female was sleeping as well.”

The mother that Ryan walked in with had found her own son.

“And when I got back to the living room, she came out of the hallway with her child and said ‘he’s not breathing,’” Ryan recalled.

He said the whole time Jordan was nowhere to be found and parents called 911. Metro Nashville Police Detective Christopher Beery testified Jordan never did that after she found the baby unresponsive earlier. He said he spoke with her days later.

“She ‘broke’ and she decided that if this child could no longer be alive that she could no longer be alive and she decided to leave the location to harm herself,” Ryan said.

WSMV4 put in a request for the autopsy of the three-month-old but has still not received it. Detective Beery said he recently asked about it.

“My understanding after speaking with the medical examiner is they couldn’t determine a cause of death,” he said.

Defense Attorney, Bernard McEvoy, asked about toxicology results. Detective Beery said they came up negative not showing anything in the baby’s system and the manner of death was undetermined.

As for a homicide charge for Jordan, that’s also still undetermined.

“That is a decision that is up to the District Attorney’s Office so I can’t speak to that,” said Detective Beery.

Jordan was originally charged with six counts of child neglect, a misdemeanor. Wednesday, the judge changed those to six counts of aggravated child endangerment, a felony.

Attorneys said someone clicked the wrong charge in the system.

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