Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Frustrated' Daycare Owner Killed Baby During Diaper Change: Cops

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Erin Sauls, 23, faces a capital murder charge after police in Little Rock, Arkansas said an eight-month-old baby boy died in her car. Police and medics were called to Sauls' home where she ran a day care on December 30 for a report of a baby not breathing. Police said Sauls admitting to slamming Elijah Flowerday's head on the floor because she was frustrated and had a headache. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the horrific case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFix Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Russell ButtonCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Three two, three. That was Erin Salls in much happier times during a gender reveal with her boyfriend. Now she's accused of murdering an eight-month-old baby boy in her care. I look at this heartbreaking case out of Arkansas and where Aaron Salls is, now. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. You know, there's a reason that Morgan and Morgan is America's largest personal injury

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There is a family in Arkansas that is starting the new year. unimaginable grief and pain. The Flower Day's eight-month-old son, Elijah, is dead. And Little Rock Police detectives say his babysitter is to blame. The case started on Tuesday, December 30th. It was just after 11 a.m. When police were called to a home on Clifton Drive, because a baby boy was not breathing. That is not normal. The boy was Elijah Flower Day. His family posted this photo of the sweet baby boy online. A Little Rock Police Department report states, Ms. Salz was running an in-home daycare when an eight-month-old quit breathing. The infant was taken to Arkansas Children's where he was pronounced deceased. The child sustained a skull fracture and multiple brainbleeds. Salz admitted

to striking the infant's head three times against the hardwood floor during a diaper change where she was frustrated. Now, because of this admission, the detectives claim that Aaron Salz made to them. She was charged with capital murder. This is the most serious charge a person can face in the state of Arkansas. The capital murder charge can mean a lot of things, including committing a murder with more than one person or while committing a murder while committing another crime, such as rape or kidnapping. But in this case, it's because of Elijah's age. He was a baby just eight months old, totally defenseless. So if an adult kills someone younger than 14 in Arkansas, That can be a capital murder charge, and that can be pursued by prosecutors.

And because this is a capital charge, the prosecutor could pursue the death penalty. And it's not clear whether that will happen in this case or not. Aaron Saul's at this point has pleaded not guilty to the charge. This is very, very early on in this case. And at least one parent who had sent their children to Saul's daycare is absolutely reeling from the news of Elijah's death. The mother shared the Little Rock Police Department's Facebook post. about Saul's arrest, writing, I just can't stop looking at this.

My babies went to her in August for a couple of weeks, and we decided to go back to her in October. Didn't stay long because she wasn't reliable. I've been crying just looking at this. A lot of ifs. R.I.P. little baby with a sad emoji face. But truly no one. No one is more sad and more devastated than baby Elijah's family.

Elijah's father, Isaac, posted about his son's death on Facebook, writing, everyone who has heard Elijah has passed away. That is true. We appreciate your prayers and support, but I have to ask everyone to stay off of social media about it. The more it gets out there and word gets lost in translation, the worst chance there is for justice to be served. So anyone who has posted anything, please take it down. Trinity and I are dealing with enough right now. We do not need news calling us and twisting the truth. The police have everything under complete control and have a confession. But the more details that get out, the worse the case has to be

closed. So again, please take down anything regarding Elijah at this point. If you have evidence against Aaron Saul's or anything like that, reach out to the local sheriff's office and they will get justice served. Respectfully to everyone, please keep Elijah out of this. It's being handled. The best way you can help is reporting to the police and praying for us in this difficult time. This is so incredibly sad. The Flower Days are not planning for their baby boy's future. Instead, they are raising money for his funeral. A GoFundMe has raised more than $14,000 at the time of this recording. The organizers of that GoFundMe wrote, Isaac and his family are facing an unimaginable loss after the passing of their beloved baby boy, Elijah. This tragedy has left Isaac, Trinity, and their son heartbroken as they grieve the loss of their son and their little brother. The days ahead will be incredibly difficult as they try to find comfort in healing together as a family. During this time, the family is in need of support to help cover funeral expenses, allow Isaac and Trinity to take time off work to be with each other and their son,

and to access counseling services that can help them cope with their grief. The financial burden of these needs can be overwhelming, especially while they are trying to process such a profound loss. We are reaching out to ask for your kindness and support for Isaac, Trinity, and any contribution no matter the size will help ease their burden and show them that they are not alone in this difficult journey. Your generosity will be deeply appreciated as they honor Elijah's memory and begin to heal as a family. So I want to bring in Russell Button of the Button law firm. They specialize in daycare cases and child injury cases. Russell, this is every parent,

I can say as a parent, every parent's worst nightmare. You drop your child off, especially a baby who is defenseless at a daycare, and you are hoping and you're trusting that the person you're dropping your child off with is going to care for and love your child as much as you do. Yeah, this is absolutely heartbreaking. It's senseless. And honestly, the first word that comes to mind is betrayal. And I saw what the other parents at the same daycare said, and that was the same thing. And we hear that in all of our cases.

just flat out betrayal, sadness, disappointment, because it should have never happened. Period, hands down. Unfortunately, we see these cases when children are seriously injured or killed at daycare far too often. And I'm trying to figure out you can never sadly end these things altogether. But I'm wondering, you know, if there are things, we can't turn back what happened to poor baby Elijah and his family. I mean, that baby was a beautiful baby. my God, I just can't even believe it. But could there have been maybe some red flags or could parents learn from this? You know, we saw the one parent who commented, she was becoming unreliable, so I just couldn't

take my child there anymore. So maybe there was something going on with this woman that Isaac's parents didn't, didn't know. Maybe they didn't have any other options. Maybe they had a good experience with her up to this point. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, all in all, the clients that come to us. when something really tragic happens, they're all the same parents that have to leave their children at daycare because they're working, they're providing for their family, they're doing everything they

can, and they just want something better for their child. They want them to be loved, to be nurtured, and returned just as safe and healthy as when they dropped them off. And so when we start with that, these parents, they dropped their little eight-month-old off and they expected that this caregiver was going to protect them when he couldn't protect themselves and they weren't there. And we know that that's not what happened. So looking back, what can we see, what can we identify that needs to be done differently or, you know, parents can look out for. The first thing in this sort of situation that we noticed was how many kids was this caregiver watching? And what it seemed like is it started off with just one child or one family's children, which is more like a babysitting situation,

right? Right. And as opposed to an at-home daycare with multiple children with one person that's responsible for everything at their house. So that is really probably the initial factor is if you're going to put your kid in somebody's at home daycare, are they licensed or are they on licensed? That's a critical component. They have a choice to be licensed. If they choose not to be licensed, that's a big red flag. The next thing is, how many kids are there? Are we talking a babysitting situation where you're just replacing a parent, an adult figure? Or are we talking to true daycare with one person, that's usually going to be trouble. And do they have cameras in the home, right? If they don't have cameras, especially ones that are fixed and can't be manipulated and

have audio, those are big things. Those will help you as a parent make better decisions. And those are just some of them that we notice in this case. So one person running a daycare at home, that's not really, you could be licensed to do that, but that's not really a daycare, you know, per se. That's more you're calling it a babysitting situation. And that's maybe something you'd want to try to avoid unless you know the person really, really well. Yeah. I mean, it goes, it goes hand in hand, right? So at these at home daycares, like I said, they have a choice to be licensed versus unlicensed. Right. And that is state by state and there are different requirements. At these at home daycares, if it's just a one adult and one or two children, you're talking babysitting. They're likely not going to be licensed.

And that is absolutely going to be its own set of safety versus risk and rewards when we see a lot of problems at these at home daycares when they are not licensed and they have multiple children. And they're not putting the safety mechanisms in place that a licensed facility daycare would with a lot of structure, with a lot more people to keep eyes on them, that they are made childproofed as opposed to somebody's house. They have actual insurance policies that cover injuries and wrongful death where they have to also meet the insurance company's requirements to keep something safe as opposed to an at-home daycare. So we see a lot of trouble with these at-home daycares consistently across the board. I'm guessing this is just a wild guess on my part and I think I'm probably right and you probably, I'm guessing this woman was not licensed and did not have insurance. That's what we've seen. Yeah, that, well, I'll take the license part from what we can tell she was unlicensed. I don't represent either any of the families in this case, so I don't specifically have first-hand

knowledge of whether or not she was licensed or not from the state. And sometimes these at-home daycares, they will get licensed and then they decide, you know what, that's too much red tape to go through. I don't want to do this licensing anymore and nobody's looking over my shoulder. So it's one of our missions in our daycare and child injury at our firm here. to make a requirement that if you're going to be more than a babysitter, you have to be licensed. And the second one on that is to have an insurance policy. On these cases, a lot of times they may have a homeowner's policy.

If they're operating at a rental property, maybe they have a renter's insurance policy. But if they're doing more than babysitting, they're typically running a business. And do they have insurance? If they don't, it's no different. The analogy I always give to parents is that's like an uninsured driver driving on our roads, right? They're an uninsured daycare operating and responsible for your pride and joy, our next generation, you know. And that's just a recipe for failure typically. I want to talk now about the specific allegations in this case.

The police, according to the report, have a confession. That's the claim. And they claim that Erin Salz said that she was changing Elijah's diaper. She got frustrated. She had a headache. and she slammed his head against a hardwood floor. Every parent gets frustrated. If you've ever babysat, you can get frustrated.

I don't know what causes that level of frustration, changing a diaper of an eight-month-old. I mean, it's like, walk away for a few minutes. You know, put the baby in the crib and walk away, you know, if you can't handle it and calm yourself down. But that's a really awful thing. And she's charged with capital murder. They could pursue the death penalty in this case.

And they may. We just don't know what the prosecutor will decide. But this sounds like a very, just a horrific thing to do to a defenseless baby over becoming frustrated and then having a headache. You know, we see it time and time again. And it doesn't matter if it's a babysitting situation and at home daycare with one person, just like this case, or even at a licensed facility. These caregivers, some are really great, you know, some are awesome. and they love these children and you want them to be involved with your child. And then others, you know, they may be in it for the wrong reasons.

They're just trying to get a check. They're trying to have a nine to five. You know, here, you know, it seemed like she was a daycare worker. She had her own child. She was doing it more like a babysitting. And then they start to put profits over safety. And they start adding kids without understanding the risk that comes with that. You've got multiple little active toddlers and infants that you're responsible for.

who's not going to be overwhelmed? You know, that's like one parent and 10 little kids that are just running around that you got to do everything for feed, change their diapers, and also supervise them. So when you're mixing ages, you got multiple kids, we see them getting overwhelmed in every setting. And that's what's really scary about this situation. And that was the most alarming part is if you're going to do this, if you're going to be responsible for kids, do it right. And here at these at home daycares, and this is something for parents out there everywhere, whether it's a babysitting situation or at-home daycare. You want to make sure what is in place there if the person that's responsible gets overwhelmed? Because it could happen and it's going to happen. Is there another adult? You know,

and do you know that person? Have they informed you of who that person is? Do they have somebody they can phone a neighbor real quick to come over and give them a break like you had mentioned? Just step away from the situation. So what's in place at these daycares to make sure when you have an overwhelmed caregiver, what's the buddy system? What's going to help prevent anything? like this from ever happening. But let's make sure we're very clear about this. No amount of being overwhelmed or frustrated with a child in any way, shape or form should this ever happen. A child should never be repeatedly slammed down no matter how frustrated and overwhelmed you are as a parent or an adult. It should just never happen. So even though safety protocols being put in place, this should

never have happened. What recourse do the parents have? I mean, obviously there's accountability being pursued through the criminal courts. But they could file a civil suit, but I'm assuming Ms. Salz is not somebody of means. And I'm guessing there was no insurance. So what recourse do they have aside from the criminal courts? Yeah, you know, what options do these parents have is one of the big ones we get all the time? I mean, we're handling several wrongful death cases tragically now involving similar facts and similar scenarios, and some of them, they do have insurance. Some of them, they do have

families that have, you know, means and stuff, and they can pay for something to at least put a name to it and help us get some answers. But when we see these cases, criminal cases are all about punishing individuals. You know, that is 100% what they're about, the actual individual. And that's going to happen here. It's on its way. These investigations take a long period of time. So it's going to be a long way down the road. But that's for her. You know, that's for the owner and director that did this. The the murder charge, etc. The state investigation, they're also, each state has its own child care licensing and abuse and neglect agencies. They're going to investigate this. She's going to be blacklisted. It's going to have different facts and findings that she can't

ever be around children again, let alone a daycare, but she's not allowed to be around children again. It's going to impact a lot of different things as it should. And so the state does their own independent investigation. And then the third prong of these is the civil case. You know, and that's what we represent these families and we help them in these others, but we don't control that. The civil cases, what their options are, if there's no insurance or if there's limited insurance opportunities through a homeowner's policy or something like that or a renter's policy, depending on what kind of home she was operating out of, and she doesn't have any assets, a civil case here would really be about sending a message to other folks out there operating

in this sort of risky format and to go and get answers still, but to mainly send a message and make sure, hey, this should never happen. And if you are going to be operating as a babysitter or an at-home daycare or even a licensed facility, you better make sure you put the safety things in place so that what happened to this family doesn't happen to anybody else that you're responsible for. And so that's really what we try to do here in these sorts of situations in a civil case is we pursue any means possible to make sure that it stays on their record, the actual people involved in the facility involved, if it's an LLC, if it's just her and her independent name. We try to make sure that it stays on their record forever and the public knows about it. There's awareness out there about

what really happened because sometimes these things just get swept under the rug or lost among all the other news stories out there. Yeah, it's horrible. Russell Button of the Button law firm, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Ingenet. Appreciate you. And Aaron Salz remains being held in jail. She will be back in court sometime this month. we'll keep an eye on this case for you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me.

I'll see you back here next time.