Bond Set For Former Alpharetta Daycare Owner Indicted in Toddler's Death

A $75,000 bond has been set for the former Alpharetta daycare owner who has been indicted on murder charges in the death of a Roswell toddler at her facility.

Court records show Janna Vernon Thompson was booked into the Fulton County Jail on Oct. 2. As of Friday evening, court records also show Thompson has yet to post bail.

Thompson last week was indicted on two counts of murder in the second degree and two counts of cruelty to children in the second degree in the death of Thomas Maxwell Stephens, 3, of Roswell.

Thomas was found unresponsive by first responders with the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety at Ms. Janna’s Daycare, located at 145 Shady Grove Lane just before 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 8.

Officers arrived onto the scene and found Thompson performing CPR on Thomas, who was discovered not breathing and unconscious outside the facility.

Thomas was rushed to North Fulton Hospital where he died the next day. It was determined the boy died by strangulation on a piece of twine attached to a slide at the daycare.

Thompson had not been charged by Alpharetta police in Thomas’s death up until last week’s indictment.

Thompson told the responding officer she did not know where Thomas got the string that was found around his neck and that she only left him outside for a few minutes before the incident occurred.

Thomas’s death forced the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, or DECAL, to issue an Order for Intended Emergency Closure of a Family Day Care Home and on July 30 revoked the license of the daycare.

An investigation by the state agency “determined that rule violations contributed to the death of a child that was not medically anticipated,” DECAL Chief Communications Officer Reg Griffin previously told Patch.

The violations cited by DECAL weren’t the first rule violations issued by the state.

Records show DECAL inspectors during a licensing study visit in January cited the center, which had been up and running in the same location for 25 years, for safety violations around its playground.

Specifically, hazards such as a wheel barrow located against a fence, an unraveled water house, excessive tree limbs and pine cones were observed throughout the outdoor play area. Two protruding nails to the right of a wooden ladder on the wooden climber were also cited.

Thomas’s parents, Jeffrey and Heidi Stephens, have filed a lawsuit against Thompson, seeking unspecified damages.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)