Day care owner accused of drugging babies and tying them into car seats

MESQUITE, Texas -- The owner of a Dallas-area in-home day care center has been jailed on child endangerment charges after she was accused of keeping infants and toddlers tied to their car seats for hours.

The owner of Becky's Child Care, Rebecca Anderson, is now in jail and facing up to nine counts of child endangerment after she confessed to regularly sedating the children with Tylenol, and leaving them tethered to the car seats in dark rooms for up to seven hours a day -- all to make her job easier, according to a report filed by detectives from the Mesquite Police Department.

An arrest warrant affidavit alleges that Anderson kept the small children tied up in car seats for at least seven hours a day at her Mesquite, Texas, in-home day care center. The affidavit also says the 60-year-old woman yanked a 6-month-old child by the bib around his neck, tied laces around the young children's necks to limit their movement and gave them acetaminophen to quiet them.

Police searched her home after Anderson was caught on a hidden camera possibly abusing a baby in a car. She allegedly yanked the baby out of the seat by his ankle and fed the child an unknown substance by syringe.

Neighbors say they sometimes heard children screaming.

"It just kind of concerned me the way the kids sounded when the parents dropped them off, where it alarmed me," one neighbor said.

Anderson was booked Sunday night into the Dallas County jail on nine counts of child endangerment with bonds totaling $45,000. Jail records list no attorney for her.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.