One year and 24 days after 3-month of McKenna Rose Felmly was found dead in a crib at a Lehigh Township day care center, a grand jury has indicted the center’s owner on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment and found that the owner and staff were “grossly negligent and reckless.”

Northampton County District Attorney John M. Morganelli on Tuesday announced he would file the charges against Sharon L. Ballek, who owned the now-closed Sharon's Day Care.The grand jury, which had been investigating the case since Aug. 25, 2016, and convened on April 6 to consider three charges, did not find sufficient evident to approve a charge of involuntary manslaughter.Ballek, Morganelli said, admitted to placing McKenna to sleep on her stomach and with a blanket, both in violation of regulations; and to leaving her unsupervised and in an unlicensed space.“The message to day care providers is simple: When people bring their children to a day care center, they place these children in your care. When you accept these children and charge a fee for your services, you are impliedly assuring that your environment will be a safe one for the children and that you will adhere to and follow all regulations promulgated by the state to insure safety,” Morganelli said.“Unfortunately, Sharon’s Day Care Center was lax in that regard, and a tragedy occurred,” he said.Efforts to reach Ballek were unsuccessful.McKenna’s parents, Bryan S. Felmly and Adrienne L. Kromer, were also unable to be reached Tuesday.It had been McKenna’s first day at the center.“Our sweet little princess never learned to walk, but she now has wings,” McKenna’s heartbroken father had written on a GoFundMe page to help raise money for her funeral.Kromer, nervous at having to leave her infant for the first time, took her “happy, healthy” infant to the day care center at 7:45 a.m. April 1, 2016.“She called three different times to see how McKenna was doing since this was the first day she had been away from her Mommy longer than like an hour and a half,” Felmly had written on the page.At the time, Carbon County coroner Robert Miller said there were no signs of trauma, and that the cause of death was likely Sudden Unexplained Infant Death.On April 5, 2016, four days after McKenna died, the state Department of Human Services closed the day care center, at 4358 Third Street in the village of Treichlers,. McKenna was found dead after being put on her tummy in a crib “outside of the measured child care space” and left alone for 25 minutes, according to a report from the DHS.State regulations require babies under 1 year old be placed on their backs for sleep as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.“The violations, events and circumstances described above constitute evidence of gross incompetence, negligence, and misconduct in operating a facility likely to constitute an immediate and serious danger to the life or health of children in care,” the DHS report stated in its emergency closure order.The agency cited seven violations:[naviga:ul][naviga:li]The center failed to provide enough staff for the number of children, had McKenna in an area not designated for child care.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]On the day McKenna died, one person was caring for seven children, two of whom were 2 years old. State law requires two staff members for a group that size, based on the ages of the youngest children.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]McKenna was placed in an area outside the designated child care space.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]McKenna was left unsupervised for several periods that day, sometimes for up to a half-hour.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]The staff member assigned to McKenna left her to go out of the room.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]McKenna was placed on her stomach to sleep.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]Ballek failed to establish and maintain an individual record for McKenna.[/naviga:li][naviga:li]Ballek allowed McKenna to attend the center without the necessary documents required to establish her record.[/naviga:li][naviga:li] [/naviga:li][/naviga:ul]