Bay Area Daycare Owner Pleads Guilty In Toddler Drownings: Report

SAN JOSE, CA — The owner of a San Jose daycare has pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including child endangerment, following the 2023 drowning deaths of two 1-year-old girls at the facility, according to a report by ABC7 News.

Nina Fathizadeh is scheduled to be sentenced in May and faces more than 20 years in prison for her role in the deaths of Payton Cobb and Lilian Hannan.

Her mother and co-owner of "Happy Happy Daycare," Shahin Gheblehshenas, maintains her innocence and is set to go to trial, prosecutors said.

In October 2023, the two toddlers managed to slip through a propped-open gate that separated a play area from a pool at the home daycare, and a third child was also found in the pool but survived, according to ABC7 News.

Gheblehshenas was at another unlicensed daycare, leaving Fathizadeh to supervise four children, and the investigation reported that Gheblehshenas's husband propped the pool gate open with a clothes rack and failed to close it, ABC7 News reported.

One child was first found floating in the pool, and then her brother found the other two children floating unconscious in the deep end, according to ABC7 News.

"They trusted these people, they not only were responsible for these children, they were being paid for it." The grandmother of Payton Cobb, who did not give her name, told ABC7 News. "Nobody sends kids out into the backyard — three toddlers — to play by themselves."

Both women were charged with felony child endangerment along with seven other misdemeanor charges.

Read the full story at ABC7 News.