A former Centre County day care employee was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly taking sexually explicit photos of children at the facility where she worked and sharing them through an internet messaging app.
Shannon M. Ishler, 44, of Bellefonte, was charged on Tuesday with five felony counts, including child sexual abuse, after an investigation that began when the day care she worked at received threatening Facebook messages and photos of nude children they determined were taken at the facility, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by state police.
The name of the day care, its location and when the investigation began were redacted from the affidavit provided to media by District Judge Kelley Gillette-Walker. The court docket for the case lists the offense location as Benner Township, and the Centre Daily Times reported the day care was Kid’s Court, which is located in the township.
Day care staff reported they received messages that “one of your staff are trying us,” and that if they did not cooperate “we are ready to damage your school and kill some kids.” They also received photos of three young children with their genitals exposed and were able to identify the location in the day care where the pictures were taken from an item in the background, according to the affidavit.
Ishler was one of the few employees who would have access to the area where the photos were taken, police wrote. Staff also reported that Ishler did not abide by a rule requiring cell phones to be left in the office and was known to take photos of children to send to their parents.
After filing for an emergency disclosure from Meta, investigators found the threatening messages came from a WhatsApp account with an identifier and phone number based in Nigeria, according to the affidavit. When interviewed by police, Ishler said she had been communicating via WhatsApp with a person she described as a friend from Texas, but a forensic analysis of her phone determined the account was located in Nigeria.
Ishler, staff told investigators, had gotten involved in scams on social media. One day she came into work upset because she had sent a nude photo of herself to someone on a messaging app who then threatened to send the image to her family and friends if she did not give the person money, according to the affidavit.
She blocked the person, who found her on another social media app and began communicating with her again, police wrote
The search of Ishler’s phone uncovered 21 images of child sexual abuse material depicting boys and girls under the age of 10 with their genitals exposed, according to the affidavit. The images were recovered from a folder associated with a WhatsApp conversation, which investigators said also contained “extortion related documents.”
Ishler allegedly told the person she was communicating with that she was “going to sell naked pics,” though police wrote that it was not clear if she was referring to photos of herself or children.
Ishler is charged with three felony counts related to sexual abuse of children, one felony count each of unlawful contact with a minor and criminal use of a communication facility and one misdemeanor count of producing obscene material involving a minor.
She was arraigned by Gillette-Walker on Tuesday morning and was unable to post $15,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17.
