Chicago daycare leaves baby alone in the dark after closing for the night

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - A Chicago father went to go pickup his 1-year-old daughter at daycare on Monday. But instead, he found a locked building with all the lights shut off and his little girl crying alone inside.

This is one of those situations that fits into the category of every parent's worst nightmare. You come to pick up your baby, and there's no one around and you don't know what happened to your child.

Now, dad Cornelius Jones and mom Quanesha Borum want ‘All Things Are Possible For Kids’ daycare shut down because police told them this is not the first time this has happened at the business.

“I was ringing the bell and no one came to the door, so I called the number and no one answered the phone, so I called again like two more times and I was like, so I kicked the door like two times, then I heard my baby screaming in the background,” Jones said.

When no one answered, he called 911 and his girlfriend, the baby's mother.

“I was just trying to get over here as fast as I can because that's the worst thing that ever could happen, but I didn't want to happen,” Borum said.

The fire department had to break in the front door, which workers were repairing Monday night.

The baby, one-year-old Journee, was found crawling around in the back room of the daycare.

“I was glad that she was OK, but I was like real mad, I was mad because how could you leave a baby in a daycare, how could a child go unaccounted for,” Jones said.

The director, Tommie Butler, shielded her face from our camera but offered an explanation to Journee's mother.

“She said the lady that was in charge of Journee put her to sleep and once everybody got ready to leave, she told her that everybody was gone,” Borum said. “But my thing is, I come here and I sign her in and out, and so why wasn't the list checked before everybody left?”

The director told FOX 32 she is not sure who the last person at the daycare was, because she left about 15 minutes before the dad arrived.

However, she told the baby's mother that when workers checked the daycare, they thought her daughter was a doll.

Police were on the scene as of 9PM and are continuing their investigation.

FOX 32 reports that state regulators will be involved by Tuesday, if they have not already been notified.