Suspicion - S1 Death in a Small Town | E4 The Daycare

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

As the tunnel vision of police and doctors narrows even further, we investigate. The daycare operator’s media posts and interviews with locals help fill in some of the blanks in Nathaniel’s story, while a court victory provides access to previously secret police notes. Audio sources: Toronto Star, CTV News London

The Billionaire Murders is brought to you by Havelock Metal, the only roof and siding you'll ever need. The following content contains discussions of child injury and death, including frank discussions and displays of emotion surrounding that loss. Listener discretion is advised. From the Toronto Star, I'm Kevin Donovan, and this is Death in a Small Town, Episode 4, The Daycare. I grew up in a town a half hour drive from where the McClellans live. The first time I went to interview them, I was pleasantly surprised to come across Camp Sylvan, just up the road. I was a Boy Scout and we froze our butts winter camping out there when I was a kid.

This is farm country, a crisscross of fields broken up by bush and rivers. This part of southwestern Ontario is nestled in between two of the Great Lakes, Huron and Erie. To get to Roseanne and Kent's house, you drive west of London, a city of 400,000. Park Hill, their closest town, has some fine old Victorian buildings, remnants of when it was a mill town in the 1800s. The McClellans live at the end of a dead-end road that cuts through green rows of corn. It's a hot day, and the brown tassels on the cobs shimmer in the heat, and everywhere I look I see wind turbines turning lazily. They look to me like some advancing mechanical army from the War of the Worlds. The McClellan house is across from Kathy Webster's, the family friend who babysits and does housekeeping for them.

I pull into the McClellan's driveway. Kent's white Kia Soul work van is there, and Roseanne's Yukon truck. I see some kids' bikes in a garage that looks like it was recently built. Oh, you want more of a towel? No, that's absolutely perfect. It's Kevin Donovan talking to Kent and Roseanne. Is it, do I pronounce it McClellan? A sister-in-law of the McClellans put me on to this story, a year and a bit after Nathaniel died. My tipster, Diane, she's the wife of Kent's older brother, Craig. I used to coach Diane and Craig's daughter in soccer. As an investigative reporter, I get a lot of tips, and you have to check them all out.

I liken it to being a firefighter. When the alarm goes off, you have to respond. Most times, it's not a fire, or in my case, a story. But if it is a story, the hope, my hope, is that we can make a difference. My goal that first meeting with the McClellans was to get them to take me through that first day. I'm looking for any clue as to what landed Nathaniel in the hospital with a nine centimeter fracture in the back of his head. I'm just not confident the police have done the best job on this case. We sit at the kitchen table. Between us, under a clear plastic tablecloth,

are pencil crayon memories drawn by Nate's brothers. They're similar to the pictures the boys tucked inside his casket. You're going to hear both Kent and Roseanne speaking. As we go along, I'm going to bring in some of the information I gleaned from the police notes. I'll start. I woke up in the morning and Nate was, you know, saying that he was awake or hollering he was awake. So I go over and I picked him up. We had a routine that I come downstairs and I, oh, no, sorry.

I had a routine. I would come over and I would put him in to the bed with Roseanne. And so I put him down with Roseanne and he would grab her hair or something like that just while I got dressed. So then I bring him downstairs and I had a routine that I put him in there, put him in the high chair. Buckle him in. Give him some Cheerios and stuff like that and then i'd make oatmeal i'd make a lot of oatmeal for all the boys and the whole family what time is this um so normally we'd aim for 6 30 but that morning we were a little

later there had kent's grandfather kent's dad had had a big party on the on the saturday night and then on sunday craig and am were down so it's busy busy busy and then on you know so everybody we were all kind of like like it was it had been a busy weekend and although it was tuesday we still were all a little tired so i think it was around seven that um i brought him down here we were eating our oatmeal and he ate all of his oatmeal and he and he wanted more and he ate a majority of mine. This is the same story the police got when they did their first interview. I know that because months later I went to court and got an order unsealing the notes made by the investigating detectives contained in search warrant requests for the parents' home.

That morning at the McClellan's was, by all accounts, a normal morning. This will become important when I start looking at the pathology and neuropathology reports on Nathaniel and hearing from the doctors who treated him. Nathaniel was in fine form that Tuesday. Kent was the first to leave. He had a busy day of calls, including a furnace installation in Strathroy. Then I went and got ready for work, came back and said goodbye, and then I left for work and never heard another thing until 10 after 12. The older boys, Gabe, Luke, and Noah, came downstairs, ate their breakfast, then raced to brush their teeth and gather their homework.

Roseanne handed them their lunches and they ran out the door to catch the school bus, backpacks banging against their backs. Here's Gabe, Luke and Noah giving their recollections. So we woke up in the morning and I came down and said hi and we had oatmeal. And then we got ready for school and then we went out that door. And I said bye and then he waved and said goodbye in, like, a really good tone. And he was really, really excited. Like, when he went outside, he ran to the window and was, like, really, really happy.

So I woke up, and I went downstairs, and I said, oh, can I please have some cereal? And he's like, no, we can't. We're going to have some oatmeal today. And so I had oatmeal. I said goodbye. And then I went out that door. With the older boys off to the bus, Roseanne took Nathaniel out of his high chair,

wiped his face, changed his diaper, got him dressed, and set him on the floor. The red mark in the center of his forehead from the door bump the previous night was barely noticeable. Nathaniel had lots of energy, loved to climb up on chairs, anything. He'd been an early walker. Roseanne and Kathy Webster both told me you had to watch him like a hawk. When I set him on the floor, he like

picked up one of my shoes and like tore around the house a bit and I had to like, you know, follow behind and find my shoe. The night before, Roseanne had given the older boys haircuts. It was picture day Tuesday, and Nathaniel scooped up the cut hair and tossed it in the air laughing. Now, the clock edging closer to 8 a.m., Roseanne looked in the mirror and did her best to tame her own mound of dark curls. Then she put Nathaniel in his car seat, buckled him in for the 25-minute drive to Megan Van Hoost's daycare in Strathroy. Roseanne was running a bit late. Megan and her husband, Brian, a truck driver, live on Head Street, a busy road in Strathroy. She had quit her job as a bank teller over a year ago and gone into the daycare business. They have two kids of their own, one in school, one in preschool. Their house is a comfortable ranch-style home with a wide driveway,

a large front yard, and an even bigger backyard. There are two wooden climbing structures in the back, one that kids in the neighborhood call a treehouse. That one is a two-story shingle-roof platform. The other is a wooden climbing gym. Megan's is not a licensed daycare. Spots for children in licensed daycares with specially trained staff, they're hard to come by. Under Ontario law, anyone can

run a daycare without a license, provided they keep it to five or fewer children. And just because a daycare is not licensed does not mean it gives poor care. Here's a small window into what Roseanne did to find someone to take care of Nathaniel Tuesdays and Thursdays. She began with a parent at North Meadows who she knew and liked. So we had a babysitter who we really liked in Strathroy, but she didn't have room. There's this Facebook thing in Strathroy, and you can post to other babysitters. And so she had kind of posted, and Megan had responded to her. And so she didn't really know Megan, but you know, she let me know that, that this woman had room.

So Jody didn't have room. And so Jody, who was the babysitter posted, there's a nice family that's looking, this is what they're looking for. Is there anyone? I, at the same time was looking on Kijiji because that's where, you know, where you kind of go. And I found a woman in our Kona, but she didn't have room. There was a friend of mine, Stacy, her son was finishing. So I was hopeful. And there's another person in our Kona, she was having babies. So that wasn't going to work. Anyways, we ended up,

I ended up finding Megan on Kijiji and Jodi had also had been in contact a little bit with Megan. So I emailed her and she said I could come the next day if I wanted to see so I went the next day like at nine and her house was clean and you know everything looked in order and I went to school after I saw her to ask around and her son was only in kindergarten but no one had anything bad to say. Roseanne pulled into Megan's driveway, her wheels making a rippling sound on the interlocking brick. She got Nathaniel out of the car seat and carried him up to Megan's door.

Nathaniel was not pleased to be dropped off, which Roseanne said was the norm when it was any sitter other than Kathy Webster. She and Megan had a brief, friendly chat, and Roseanne handed over Nathaniel and his diaper bag. So I left him and he was crying. But that's how it was every time. And I went to school. And when I would take Nathaniel, although he would cry when I dropped him off, all my other children cried at the other babysitters too. So that didn't raise any big red flags. But also when I dropped him off, she said to me one day, you know, Tuesdays and Thursdays are my favorite days because, you know, I love babies. This is, you know, this is really nice. That Tuesday morning in late October was just the

15th time Roseanne had left Nathaniel at Megan's. Some of the kids Megan looked after were school age and she had them both before and after school. That meant that Megan was frequently around North Meadows at pick-up and drop-off, and Roseanne recalls looking out the classroom window from time to time, seeing Megan with Nathaniel, and everything looked fine. Roseanne's one concern was diaper rash. Nathaniel always had one after being at Megan's. He had a very bad diaper rash and so he had never had a bad diaper rash. None of my children have ever had a diaper rash like that and I had taken him to the hospital or to the doctors, the walk-in clinic, about September 18th. I have the exact date. It was the weekend of the fall fair because the diaper rash just seemed to get worse every time he was

there. After the drop-off that morning, Roseanne headed to school just 450 meters away. Roseanne headed to school, just 450 meters away. Roseanne loved being a teacher, and more than ever, this school year, everything was clicking, both work and home life. When she and Kent were married, they made a plan to have five children. Roseanne came from a big family. Kent has one sibling. They both liked the idea of a busy house. Nathaniel was the fourth, and Roseanne was three months pregnant with their fifth. I was pumped. I was pregnant. I was happy. My principal was amazing. My class was great. A word about Megan Van Hoof and the timeline in this episode. I wish we could have her voice describing in her own words what happened after Nathaniel was dropped at her home.

I've tried for years to have a sit-down interview. We've spoken a few times on the phone, and once at her house, but she said she couldn't talk to me in detail. Here's one of our calls. Hello? Hello, is Megan there, please? This is Megan. Megan, my name is Kevin Donovan, and I'm a reporter with the Toronto Star. How are you doing today?

I'm fine, how are you? Not too bad. It's probably a bit of a shock to have a reporter call you out of the blue. I've been looking into a case of that sad situation involving Nathaniel, who died about two years ago. Right. And this is nothing for immediate future publication, but I was wondering if I'd be able to talk to you about it, what happened. I don't know what to say. I don't know if I should contact my lawyer. I really have no idea.

I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what to say, honestly. It's kind of out of the blue that someone would be contacting me because I haven't heard anything about it in months and months and months. On a second try a couple of months later, I reached Megan up in Collingwood. She was at a scrapbooking party with her girlfriends. Do you think we could talk? I'd have to check with my lawyer.

That's, I understand that. That's what you said a couple of months ago, and I was waiting to hear back from you. Well, he hasn't thought it was a great idea, so I can discuss it with him again. I need to call him uh here anyway so i can uh it's probably going to be no though if there's some way you can just tell me a little bit about what your side of the story is because i actually don't know what your side is i seem to know

everybody's side but megan's side why do you need my side of the story? I just don't understand why the media needs to be involved, that's all. Well, when incidents happen in our communities, when there's a death and it's unexplained,

it's not unusual for the media to do stories. A third try. This time I knocked on her door on Head Street. The audio is not great here. Hi. Hi, Megan. Kevin Donovan. We've talked a few times on the phone.

Any thought if we can have an interview? No. You haven't had a thought? No, I'm not talking to anybody at this time. Can you just tell me why? I mean, it's... It's been advised to you by my lawyer. Okay. This is Glenn Donald. Yeah. Yeah. Because I made an attempt to talk to him as well. I think you know. I don't know, did he pass that on to you?

Mm-hmm. And so was there any point of me trying to talk to him? He said he was calling you. I don't know. he did. Okay. I'm sure this is a very difficult thing, but I think it is a real public interest in knowing what happened to this child. I mean, a child died. I'd like to know what happened to the child, too. We'll be right back.

This is Kevin Donovan. I've been around building and renovation projects my entire life, so I can tell you it's important to make your next roof the last one your house, cottage, or building will ever need. Do it once, do it right, do it now. Have luck metal. Request your quote today. To attempt to provide Megan's side of the story, I'm going to use notes from an interview she gave detectives. I would have preferred hearing the day's events straight from Megan, but it's her right not to talk. The police notes are contained

in affidavits prepared by the detectives to convince a judge to issue search warrants, giving them the legal right to enter both the McClellan and Van Hoof homes and to look at their cell phones and computers. Megan told police that Roseanne was running late that morning, arriving at her home around 8.30. She told the detective Nathaniel was normal looking, though he seemed a little grouchy. Just before 9 a.m., Megan said she gathered up all the children, I've not been able to determine how many she was caring for that day, and headed in the direction of North Meadows School. That's where Roseanne teaches and where Megan's son and other children attend school. She dropped off the school-age kids,

then dropped her daughter at the preschool adjacent to North Meadows. Nathaniel, and another toddler, rode in a red wagon for the trip. I spoke to Emily Hendricks, who runs Emily's preschool. She confirmed that she saw Megan and Nathaniel that morning. I run a nursery school. It's from 9 to 11.45. So that day, the Tuesday, Megan came in. She had come in before with other kids once in a while, and she'd also bring Nathaniel in once in a while. And I would hold him while she helped her daughter take her boot, because it was October, so it must have been cold, because I helped her take her boots and stuff off.

And then, so that day, I don't recall anything unusual at all. Megan told police she went home with Nathaniel and the other toddler in the wagon. At around 9.15 a.m., Megan said she got juice and snack and went downstairs to play with the two toddlers. Her basement has carpeted stairs that go down to a carpeted basement. Megan told police Nathaniel was showing signs he was very tired but wouldn't go for a nap. She said she tried to put him down for a nap, but he screamed again, and eventually she settled him on the couch for a 30 to 45 minute nap. I've got the police notes in front of me. The detective, quoting Megan, says,

unusual for Nate, usually very happy. Went back out to playroom. He was showing signs of being tired, falling asleep standing up. Tried again to put him down for nap. He screamed again, brought him back out to playroom. She said at one point in the morning, Nathaniel kicked and screamed and threw himself on the floor, behavior she had never seen. Megan also said that at some point in the morning,

her cat scratched the side of Nathaniel's face. Without speaking to Megan, having a real conversation, there's no way for me to know what went on during the three hours she was caring for Nathaniel. I asked Megan, was it possible that she took the kids outside and Nathaniel, who loved to climb, scrambled up into the play structure and fell? She said no, they never went outside. I had a look at Megan's social media posts for the morning to see if there were any clues. In addition to the home daycare, Megan had a small

business that sold electronics, scent diffuser supplies, and a plastic wrap business that boasts it can help people lose weight. I asked her if she was distracted by her business that morning. She said no. Megan had six social media posts on Instagram or Facebook while operating her home daycare that morning, ranging from business-related to silly comments. 7.28 a.m. Megan posts an ad asking for three product testers to try our products. 8.36 a.m. Megan posts an ad for a diffuser starter bundle at a cost of $253. 10.12 a.m. Megan posts a poem for mornings. Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee. Everyone shut up.

Coffee. 10.55 a.m. Megan posts an ad for her weight loss wraps and includes a photo of a woman who has used the wrap and claims to have lost weight. 11.09 a.m. Megan responded to a Facebook discussion about where a friend should have dinner. Her husband, Brian, who's on the chat, suggests, The Beef Baron, LOL.

At that time, Beef Baron was a London, Ontario strip club, and it's now an antique market. Megan replies, What kind of food do they serve, Brian Van Hoof? 11.10am, Megan posts an ad for a facial cleanser. At 11.30am, according to the police notes, Megan gets Nathaniel and the other little boy ready for the trek back to Emily's preschool. The two-and-a-half-year-old walks up the carpeted stairs on his own, and she carries Nathaniel.

Megan takes them to the garage to put their shoes on, and she said at that point Nathaniel collapses on the landing, slumping to one side as he falls. Megan stressed to the detective, Nathaniel did not fall down the three steps from the landing to the concrete garage floor. She says she never got his shoes or coat on. When she looked down at Nathaniel on the landing, he was lethargic. Out of it, he was breathing, almost like he was sleeping. She told the detective she didn't notice a bruise on his head until after he collapsed. This is the only mention of a bruise in the notes of Megan's interview, and the specific location of the bruise is not mentioned.

Megan told police she called the school and asked for Roseanne. That call came in at 11.50 a.m., 20 minutes after Megan says Nathaniel collapsed. I go back to my classroom, the kids are coming in, and my principal came and said, the babysitter's on the line. It's an emergency, you have to call her,

here's the number. North Meadows School has a different routine than most, called a balance schedule, three academic periods separated by two long breaks. Principal Scott Askey told police he was certain the call from Megan came in at 11.50 a.m. At that time, Roseanne's class was just coming back from the morning break. They had a guest speaker from public health who was going to talk to the students about dental hygiene. Roseanne picks up a hall phone and dials Megan's number. I got on the phone and she said, you know,

when Nathaniel's fallen and he can't hold his head up and he's falling asleep. But I couldn't hear him in the background, so I thought, you know, he had fallen and she had sued, like he was okay. And he was a very cuddly little guy, like he just snuggled in. So I thought he just, you know, he had fallen and she sued him and he's just snuggled in so I thought he just you know this he had fallen and she sued them and he's just snuggled in I never dawned on me what she what I didn't know so um I said okay I'll come

and get him and I'll take him to the hospital and uh and she said um do you want me to come there bring him to you and I said well yeah yeah, that would be great because I have to get out of the school. I have a classroom full of kids and, you know, that would be good. And at one point she said, oh, Nathaniel. A supply teacher took over. Roseanne grabbed her purse and car keys and sprinted out the door to her Yukon.

I went out into the truck and I drove out of the parking lot and when I drove out of the parking lot, she had turned the corner onto the street that my school was on and she was pulling an empty red wagon and she was holding Nathaniel and his face was in facing in and he was stiff. I couldn't tell that when I looked at her, but like he was, he was, he was not like, he was just like hanging. I don't know. I understand. at her, but he was just hanging.

I don't know. I understand. Okay. And there was a toddler in front, toddling in front of her. And I pulled off to the side of the road, and I grabbed the car seat, and I ran around, and I scooped him from her, and he was stiff. And I put him in the car seat, and I couldn't buckle him in because I couldn't move his arms. His arms were stiff. So I just took the car seat, put it in the car, and drove to the hospital, which is three kilometers away.

At the time, Roseanne did not own a cell phone. She floored it to the hospital, blew through stop signs, made it there in four minutes. I asked Roseanne to try and recall Megan's demeanor, anything she said, and what she observed when she looked at Nathaniel. She kept repeating, she was sorry, she was sorry. He was stiff. Everything was stiff. Like like straight. His eyes were not open. So when I looked at him, I said, oh Nate, what did you know? But no, Nate. And I could see this red scratch on the top of his ear that wasn't there when I dropped him off. The red scratch, Roseanne noticed, was actually a cluster of three abrasions on the skin around Nathaniel's left ear. One at the top, one at the bottom, one at the back, each just a

few centimeters from the ear. The pathology report done on Nathaniel refers to two of these scratches as curved linear abrasions. The other one is straight. It was one of many findings the McClellans felt police ignored. Frustrated with how the investigation was progressing, Kent went to see the Strathroy officer who at the time was leading the probe, Gilles Fillion. He's the one who interviewed Kent at the hospital and asked if they had a life insurance policy on Nathaniel or owned an ATV. Kent asked Fillion if he had considered laying a charge against Megan, the babysitter, because she didn't call 911 when Nathaniel collapsed, and there was a delay in getting help. And he looked at me and he said,

if we charge her with that, then we could charge your wife with the same charge based on the time that she got the phone call and she got him to the hospital. I took time from the time Megan called me till the time I got Nathaniel to the hospital that I was criminally negligent. How much time did you take? 10 minutes. Well, I didn't know what to do. I almost fell over when he said that to me because I thought that that's preposterous. Like, please tell me you're not actually serious. While Megan would not agree to be interviewed by me, I do have a recording of her

describing the events of the morning. It was made by Kent, who knocked on Megan's door about a year after Nathaniel died. Kent says he was desperate for information, something, anything, and hoped Megan could fill in the blanks. Megan did not know she was being recorded.

Later, Kent gave the audio file to police and to me. I don't really have much to say other than he wasn't himself that day and he collapsed, like as if fainted, when I was getting him ready to go get her from preschool. I even texted my girlfriend that day and said, it was never like, it was never. It was always like this. I didn't want to see.

I just knew something was wrong, but I just thought maybe it was just having a bad day. I never thought anything like this would happen. The conversation, just 10 minutes long, takes place on Megan's front doorstep. Kent asks, where did Nathaniel collapse? Megan says it was on the landing in her garage. We have like a platform and then three stairs,

and he just, when I was taking him out, he had been ready to walk down to get s***. I had the phone with me, and I was taking him out to get him ready to walk down to get ****, I had **** with me. And I opened the door and Nate walked out. And I turned around to get **** and out of the corner of my eye, he just, like he fainted. I say he collapsed, but it was just like he slumped to the floor. And the only reason I didn't call 911, because he was looking at me and he was breathing. It was just like he had passed out from, I fainted before myself and come back to you. And it was just like that.

Like I called Roseanne right away. As Kent turns to leave, emotions get the better of him. We just want to know what happened to him. He dropped off a perfectly good, healthy boy. And he died. You don't just die. You know, you don't just die. We're now back to where our story began.

If you recall, Al Azevedo, who lives in the area, he was on his way home for lunch with pizza for him and his wife. Here's what Al told me he saw just before noon. You heard this in the first episode, but I think it's worth circling back. The adult, I believe in question here is Megan Van Hoof, was pulling a wagon. There was something in the wagon, like I want to say a knapsack or a bag. And there was a child in her left arm and she was holding this child. The child was facing away from her, so forward, and was drooped forward, like as if you buckled um her arm was not quite

underneath the armpits but were up that high and the child was drooped over so the the face of the child i could not see uh but the child was uh facing or looking towards the sidewalk that they were walking on. I remember that vividly because I thought, wow, how can that, knowing that she's a daycare provider, how is that child being held like that? And why isn't it in the wagon? It's a remarkably similar account, the only difference being that Roseanne said Nathaniel was facing inward towards Megan, and Al said the little boy was facing forward.

The police, by the way, they never talked to Al. It's clear that the police went pretty hard at Roseanne and Kent. Three searches of the house, inside and outside. One official, two unofficial, the unofficial searches in the first two days. Two interviews, which Roseanne calls interrogations, and both took lie detector tests and both passed. But what about Megan? She was interviewed twice, but she refused a lie detector test. As to her house, the search warrant police obtained only authorized detectives to look inside, and as far as I can tell, they only went there once, and not immediately. That's one question Megan did answer when I had her on the telephone.

No one has been to my house other than forensics, so no. Okay, so there's no, no, but did they have a search warrant? No. Okay, so just forensics. Not that I'm aware. Like I said, the only people that have come into my house are forensics, taking pictures and video of my house. That's it. And just, was that like the day of, a couple of days after, just so I can put it in my timeline? That was

probably two weeks after the accident, just because it was after his funeral. So I believe it was, and it was a Tuesday. So I think it's probably two weeks to the day of the accident. That means police did not examine, at least not officially, the two play structures outside. I've had a look at them. A neighbor let me look over his fence, and my colleague, photographer Lucas Olenek, took photos. The play structures,

to me, they look rickety. In Roseanne's interview with the police, she tells them that during the frantic exchange on Head Street when she picked up Nathaniel, Megan told her she had put Nathaniel outside with the girls before school. I asked Megan about that. Is there any chance that the child was left untended and was maybe out in the back at the play structure? No. I asked Megan about these possibilities because two people I interviewed raised concerns about Megan's supervision of children. One Strathroy woman told me she pulled her child from Megan's home daycare over supervision concerns. Cooper, can I ask you, what did you dress as Halloween last night? Um, a dinosaur. A dinosaur, what?

Teresa Lovett is a registered massage therapist in Strathroy. Her husband works full-time, she works part-time, and like Roseanne, she only needed someone to look after her son Cooper for a few days a week. Cost was also an issue. Megan charges roughly $30 a day, less than a regulated daycare. I knew her from town. So, I mean, it's a small town. Yeah.

So I knew her from town. And so, yeah, she agreed to take him on. She was just starting at the time. We did a tour of the house, and she showed me around, showed me all the baby gates she had that were going to be installed. She was just starting at the time. We did a tour of the house and she showed me around, showed me all the baby gates she had that were going to be installed. Nothing was ever installed the entire time he was there. No, thank you.

They played mostly in the basement. She had a finished basement and the toy room was down there. So they played mostly down there and stuff, but lunch and stuff upstairs. But she had baby gates for the top of the stairs and the bottom of the stairs that she showed me because she had them for when her kids were little, but they were uninstalled. She said they were going to be put back in. They never were. Teresa said Cooper started going to Megan's in 2014, the year before Nathaniel. She said Cooper was not fond of going there. He cried from the minute I dropped him off to the minute I

picked him up. And he wasn't there very long. She used to try and convince me to leave him there for the whole day. Getting Cooper to go was an ordeal. He would scream all the way and he knew I could go different ways and he would be fine. If I went a different way, he would be fine. But she's got that stone in her laneway. So when you pull up, he would know the second we pulled in and he would like instantly start to cry as soon as we hit her laneway. One year into his time with Megan, Teresa finished work early in the afternoon and drove over to Megan's to pick up Cooper. I went to pick him up one day and it wasn't anything to do with Cooper. He was inside with

Megan. She was changing his diaper and all the rest of the kids were out playing in her front yard, including one little boy who had, so this was right before school got out because I ended up letting my daughter watch him for the summer. So this was the week, the last week of school. It was the Thursday or Friday or whatever. I went to pick him up and she was inside with Cooper and all the rest of the kids were outside. One of them had just had his second birthday and I was like floored that he was outside in the front yard playing by himself with the other kids who were biking up and down the sidewalk and then into the neighbor's driveway and

back. Head streets are busy. It's a busy street. Yeah. And I mean, if my two year old was out front of the house, he'd been on that road so quick. Because anything could happen to those kids.

Somebody could come and take them. They could get hit by a car. Like, there's so many, so many things that could have happened. And it only takes a second. That day, Teresa took Cooper home and never brought him back. She said she was too upset to tell Megan why. The experience left her concerned that her son's time there had negatively affected him. Theresa took Cooper home and never brought him back. She said she was too upset to tell Megan why. The experience left her concerned that her son's time there had negatively affected him.

She said her son was an early talker, but during his year at Megan's, his speech suffered. That's back on track now. Theresa's allegations are referenced in a civil suit the McClellans launched against the Van Hoofs. None of the allegations have been tested in court. The McClellans allege that Theresa removed her own child from the care of Megan Van Hoof's. None of the allegations have been tested in court. The McClellans allege that Teresa removed her own child from the care of Megan Van Hoof due to obvious negligence and criticized the police for not interviewing Teresa for two years. The Van Hoofs and their reply to the McClellan lawsuit state that baby gates were installed at the top and bottom of the basement stairs. The Van Hoofs also state that Teresa removed her child

because she wanted a different schedule for snacks and naps than that set at the Van Hoof household. When Nathaniel died, it was just a few months after Teresa pulled her son out of Megan's care. She didn't know the McClellans at the time, only connected later with Roseanne after Nathaniel died. I feel bad I couldn't have stopped something from happening. Another Strathroy woman I spoke to, Amanda Starling, lives nearby

and said she knew of someone who had a child in Megan's care. Amanda is a parent who has children at North Meadows School, where Roseanne teaches. I knew prior to the Nathaniel case that Megan was a daycare provider and I had a friend that had a friend with a child in her care and I had seen the kids left unattended out on her front yard and she lives on a very busy street, which was alarming to me. So I had informed my friend so she could tell her friend that the children were left unattended. Because I live so close, I'm on Hedge Street often too. So just out and about my daily errands and whatever, I would drive by and see, see the children unattended in the front yard. How many times do you think?

There was definitely twice for sure that I seen them. Just paint me a picture of the scene, ages of kids, where they are. There was four children, all little, like they had to have been between the ages of one and three, three and a half at most. And just playing out there, like there was a couple of balls and a few little toys or whatever. They were just running around doing their own thing, unattended. Amanda asked her friend to pass on the information to the woman whose child was in Megan's care. And when the friend asked Megan like I was told you know the kids were left unattended on the front yard today and I'm concerned. Megan had told her she just ran in the house for a moment to use the bathroom. She wasn't gone long at all. I asked Megan about the observations of the

two women and she denied the incidents occurred. In the Van Hoof's reply to allegations contained in the civil suit from Roseanne and Kent that she did not properly look after Nathaniel, the Van Hoof state that at no time was Nathaniel out of Megan's sight. The police notes contained in the search warrant material show that a detective did speak to one woman who normally had three children in Megan's home daycare, but only one child the day Nathaniel went to hospital. That's a toddler Al Azevedo saw running along the sidewalk. Sarah McGilvery, the mom, told the detective

she has no concerns with the care Megan is providing. She said her children have fun at Megan's, often playing outside, but sometimes down in the rec room in the basement. One final note, this one about the police interview of Megan. In police interviews contained in search warrant documents, information is often included, but with no explanation as to why it's there. That's the situation with the opening line in the police summary of Megan's interview.

It reads, Megan states she has not been drinking or taking drugs recently. In the many hundreds of pages of search warrant documents related to Nathaniel's case, the question about drinking or taking drugs is not raised in any other police interview, including those of Nathaniel's parents, his grandparents,

Kathy Webster, or another woman who helped with Nathaniel's child care. Megan did not respond to a question from the Star regarding drinking or drug use. That day, the Tuesday, ended with Nathaniel in hospital on life support and the start of the police investigation. According to the police notes, after she handed over Nathaniel, Megan texted a woman, Jennifer Waters, a friend from when they both worked as bank tellers. Sometimes Megan picked up Jennifer's kids after school. Megan tells Jennifer, Nate fell over, he just collapsed. Later in the day, Megan texts Jennifer again, cops are involved and they will be contacting my parents.

She means the parents of children she looks after. Megan's text to her friend concludes, Last I heard, he's in critical condition, and my day just got real bad. There's no way it could have happened here. I was with him all morning and never took my eyes off him. Next time on Death in a Small Town. The police have told me that you stated that my behavior was abnormal. And CAS has told me that you stated that my interactions with staff in the PCCU was bizarre. It was.

Because I want to know what went wrong. I don't understand. My son was alive, and he was healthy, and he was happy, and then he was dead, and nobody has answers, and

everyone, nothing they say makes sense to me. And so I did. Death in a Small Town was researched, written, and narrated by me, Kevin Donovan, and produced by Raju Mudder, J.P. Fozzo, and Sean Pattenden. Additional production was done by Andrea MacDonald, Kelsey Wilson, and Brian Bradley. Photography by Lucas Olenek. Music and sound design for the series created by Sean Pattenden.

From the Toronto Star, I'm Kevin Donovan, and this is Death in a Small Town.