After moving with their 7-month-old son, Benjamin and Hope hired 22-year-old Alexis to babysit the infant. The parents had run a background check on the woman, and maintained that it came up clean. “We felt like Alexis was a good fit at the time,” Benjamin said.
However, the parents’ confidence in the babysitter quickly shattered a few months later. Benjamin stated: “About five months into her being our babysitter, we started to notice that our dog was very protective of our son when she would come in the door.
He was very aggressive towards her and a few times we actually had to physically restrain our dog from going towards her.”
Thanks to Killian, the parents became suspicious and devised a plan to find out what was going on in their home. Hope suggested using an iPhone to record what was happening in the home when they weren’t present. They stuffed the phone under a couch and retrieved it later that evening. “It started with cussing,” Benjamin said. “Then you hear slap noises and his crying changes from a distress cry to a pain cry. I just wanted to reach through the audio tape, go back in time and just grab him up.”
“To know that five months I had handed my child to a monster, not knowing what was going on in my house for that day,” he added. The babysitter was arrested by the police department a few weeks later, and readily confessed to the crime. She pleaded guilty to assault and battery and was sentenced to serve one to three years in prison. As part of her plea deal, she will also be listed on a child abuse registry, essentially banning her from working with children. Benjamin stated: “That is fantastic news to us.
To know that maybe Finn’s ordeal has possibly saved another child’s life in the future. Had our dog not alerted us to the trouble, had my wife’s instincts not said we need to make something happen, it could have been Finn that was killed by the babysitter. You never know.” The babysitter will be eligible for parole after serving one year in prison. According to the parents, their son is fine and has no lingering effects from the abuse.
