A Texas day care worker, aged 45, is facing a decade-long prison term for the repeated abuse of multiple toddlers, an appalling series of incidents that occurred over several months. Catherine Guziejka was found guilty of injuring children at Punkin’ Doodles Day Care in Lindale, a small community roughly 200 miles north of Houston. Her actions spanned from July to October 2024.

In September, Guziejka admitted to the charge of injuring a child with the intent to cause bodily harm. Her sentencing on Wednesday resulted in a 10-year prison term, the maximum penalty for a third-degree felony, according to Richard Vance, the Smith County assistant district attorney. The families of the victims, while accepting the sentence, expressed frustration over the inability to impose a harsher punishment.

Vance emphasized that Guziejka’s actions were not reactions to misbehavior or a momentary lapse due to being overwhelmed. “The children were just sitting still and quiet when the abuse occurred,” he explained to local ABC affiliate KLTV. “This wasn’t a situation where she lost control in a chaotic moment; it was a continuous pattern of abuse without any justification.”

It was not as if Guziejka was punishing kids for misbehaving or because she was overwhelmed.

“They were just sitting still and quiet and it happened,” Vance told the TV station. “This wasn’t just an instance of [there was] just a lot going on and [she] just lost it in the moment. This was just an ongoing thing for no reason.”

Vance said the children did not suffer serious physical injuries but he worries about their long-term mental health.

“It could be years from now and something [could] trigger them,” he said.

Guziejka’s attorneys reportedly blamed her actions on her low IQ, saying it was lower than 80% of the population.

The investigation kicked off in October 2024 when an employee at the day care performed a review of the facility’s security camera footage, a probable cause affidavit obtained by Tyler CBS affiliate KSLA stated. During the review, the employee allegedly saw Guziejka kicking a 2-year-old boy in the lower back while the child was on the floor.

The employee notified the victim’s father about the incident on Oct. 23, 2024, and the father immediately contacted the Smith County Sheriff’s Office and filed a report.

Investigators then reviewed footage from the day care and said they uncovered evidence of Guziejka physically assaulting six different 2-year-olds 134 different times.

Many of the attacks on the toddlers involved a similar situation in which the victim was watching something on television when Guziejka would approach them from behind and kick them in the lower back using her right foot, local CBS and CW affiliate KYTX reported.

Other examples of abusive behavior that investigators reported seeing multiple times on the footage included Guziejka standing on the toddlers’ hands, aggressively moving them around in their sleep, and grabbing a sleeping child by the arm and dragging them to changing tables.

When changing the children, Guziejka would also regularly force the children to stare at the wall instead of the television on the opposite side of the room by aggressively holding the victims’ heads down.

Melanie Dawn Law, the former owner of Punkin’ Doodles Day Care, reportedly reviewed the security footage before speaking to police. During her law enforcement interview, Law reportedly confirmed that Guziejka had been assaulting the children since July with at least 100 different instances of abuse being uncovered. She said Guziejka — who was initially hired in September 2023 — was fired immediately after the abuse was revealed and all of the footage depicting the abuse was then turned over to investigators.

Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith told KLTV it was fortunate that none of the children were seriously injured by Guziejka, saying it has been limited to “minor to medium bruising.”