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Shahin Gheblehshenas and Nina Fathizadeh (Mug shots from San Jose Police Department)
A mother and daughter in California operating a home day care previously cited for staffing and monitoring violations were arrested after three toddlers walked through an open pool safety gate and two drowned when one of the caretakers went into the kitchen for five minutes to finish preparing tea and oatmeal.
Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, and daughter Nina Fathizadeh, 41, face charges of child neglect resulting in death, child endangerment, and criminal negligence in the case, police said in a news release.
It happened on Oct. 2. Police were notified that several juveniles had fallen into a pool at Gheblehshenas’ home — where she and her daughter operated Happy Happy Daycare — in the 1000 block of Fleetwood Drive in San Jose.
Charging documents obtained by NBC’s Bay Area affiliate KNTV outlined the case.
The document said a pool child-safety gate had been left open between Sunday night and Monday morning when Gheblehshenas’ husband opened it to water plants. Gheblehshenas knew her husband regularly watered the plants and occasionally did not close the pool gate, the document said. She didn’t check the pool gate before the day care opened that Monday morning and didn’t ask anyone else to check on it either, the document alleges.
As the first child was dropped off that morning, Gheblehshenas left, believing she had a doctor’s appointment that morning, without checking the pool gate. When she learned her doctor’s appointment was scheduled for the following week, she “chose not to return to the daycare in her home,” even though she was aware that another worker was absent and her daughter was concerned that the facility was understaffed.
Gheblehshenas instead decided to go to her daughter’s home, where both suspects had set up a second unlicensed daycare center to care for her two children, and at least two other children scheduled to be brought there that day, the document said.
At Gheblehshenas’ day care, the children played in the living room before Fathizadeh opened the sliding glass door and directed them into the backyard. She had a view of the pool gate — still propped open — yet she did nothing to close it, the charging document alleges.
Then she walked to the kitchen to finish preparing tea and oatmeal. From the kitchen, she could not see the children or the backyard. She was there for at least five minutes before going to the backyard to check on the children, the document said.
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“Upon seeing that the gate to the pool was propped open by a drying rack, [Fathizadeh] went to the pool and located John Doe floating in the shallow end,” the charging document said.
She removed the boy from the pool and attempted CPR before moving him to a living room, calling 911, and trying CPR again.
She then woke her brother, asleep in his bedroom, for help. He went to the pool and found two toddlers floating in the deep end. The brother removed the children from the pool, called 911, and attempted CPR.
The children were taken to hospitals in critical status. Despite life-saving efforts, two were declared dead. The third survived.
Arrest warrants for the two suspects were issued on Friday. They turned themselves in at San Jose Police Department headquarters and were booked into jail.
Their arraignments were set for Dec. 6.
The business has six citations, and a revocation action is pending, state records show.
The day care’s voicemail box was full on Saturday. They did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment.
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