Newport Babysitter Hits 4-Year-Old with Wooden Spoon, Puts Glue in Hair

A 23-year-old Newport woman is facing simple assault charges for allegedly putting glue on a four-year-old’s head and hair and striking the child on the buttocks with a wooden spoon.

Newport police said Carrissa L. Kenyon, 23, of 43 Merton Road, Newport, was arrested after an investigation that began when the child’s grandmother reported the alleged abuse.

According to a police report, Kenyon was asked to babysit the child by the child’s mother, who happens to have been a longtime friend.

The child reportedly knew Kenyon as “Auntie Carissa” and was dropped off the morning of June 3.

The mother told police that she dropped her daughter off at around 8:30 a.m. and she got a call a short time later from Kenyon telling her that the child had misbehaved and put Elmer’s glue on a pet bunny rabbit.

Kenyon told the mother that as punishment, she put glue on the child’s arm and gave her a spanking.

When the mom picked the child up, she found glue on her face and in her hair and the child later complained that her buttocks was in pain. The mother checked and saw two welts, one on each side.

“Auntie Carissa spanked me with a wooden spoon two times,” the child said.

The mother called Kenyon in an effort to get more information and she told police that a boyfriend answered and said she wasn’t there.

The next day, Kenyon reportedly sent a text message to the mother and said “you can’t teach your [expletive] kid how to act don’t bring her over here- she’s a brat with no rules or discipline and its because of you and the way you parent [sic],” according to a police report. “You’re welcome for me teaching her a [expletive] lesson.”

Police said photographs of the injuries showed two red welts on the child’s buttocks and the child was checked out at a medical facility in Portsmouth.

The mother told police she was worried that the state Department of Youth, Children and Families would get involved and remarked that her child care assistance was cut from 100 percent to 75 percent. As a result, she was only able to send the child to daycare for 30 hours a week and had asked Kenyon to fill the remaining hours.

When questioned by police, Kenyon said that she put the child down for a nap and heard the sound of the bunny cage being rattled. She then said that she heard giggling 30 minutes later and when she went into the room, saw that the child had put glue all over the bunny, its cage and food.

Kenyon said she used Dawn dish soap to clean off the bunny and then slapped the child on the buttocks.

Kenyon said she then laid out a wooden spoon and rubber spatula and told the child to decide which utensil she would be struck with.

The child reportedly cried and begged not to be hit, but Kenyon said she pulled her pants down and slapped her four times -- once for each year of her age.

Kenyon insisted this is the same punishment she would have given to her own children.

Police said Kenyon claimed she slapped the child with an open hand and when confronted by the photographic evidence, she reportedly said that she said so because “[the child] would not choose.”

Kenyon was arrested and later released with a District Court summons to appear on June 24 to answer to a charge of simple assault.