Church Day Care Employee Facing Multiple Child Sexual Assault Charges

By Marcus Officer
Fox 7
May 27, 2016

http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/147136679-story

A Gillespie County Grand Jury has indicted 31-year-old Seth Batterton with more than 12 counts of sexual assault involving a child. He is accused of sexually abusing as many as four young children since 2009 including a child from the Fredericksburg United Methodist Church Child Development Center, the place he worked prior to his arrest.

In April, a local middle school contacted Fredericksburg Police after a young girl, the daughter of Batterton's close friend, told them she was abused by Batterton. She was not the only one.

According to court paperwork, Batterton is accused of abusing at least four young girls, one of the victims was under the age of 14. People we talked to were shocked.

"I would be pretty much beside myself. I mean that's a hard pill to swallow," Paul Minder, a parent, said.

Cindy Jones said she was not as surprised by this news.

"Well you hear how frequent it happens even in a tiny little town the police are constantly, it seems like, shockingly but constantly involved in cases that have to do with that," she said.

What Jones said she was surprised by, is how someone like Batterton could get a job working with children.

"I fell like someone didn't do a proper background check because somebody that, if it was an adult male, he probably had some kind of history in the past or something on his record that might preclude him from doing something with children. There is no excuse," Jones said.

According to court paperwork, charges against Batterton date back to 2009 when he was accused of having sex with a child. In July 2012 another young child accused Batterton of sexual abuse but a grand jury did not have enough evidence to charge him. Now parents are hoping, if the new charges are true, that he never steps foot out of jail again.

"I'd want to see them locked up forever. Castrated you know, that would kind of help. It will happen again. He'll always do it, he is a pedophile so he should be locked up and the key thrown away and that's about it," Paul Minder said.

Batterton has been charged with 12 counts of Sexual Assault, one count of Indecency with a Child, and one count of Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child under 14. Batterson remains in jail on a $480,000 bond.