Former Wentzville home day care provider charged in boy’s death

June 30--ST. CHARLES COUNTY -- A former Wentzville day care provider has been charged in the 2009 death of an 18-month-old boy who was under her care at the time.

St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar said Lisa A. West, 40, formerly of the 600 block of Autumn Creek Drive and now living in Illinois, was recently indicted by a grand jury on a felony charge of child abuse. She turned herself in to authorities Monday morning and posted $100,000 cash bail in the afternoon to gain release from the St. Charles County Jail.

Lohmar said at a news conference that a child victim unit within his office began actively re-investigating the five-year-old case about a year ago and concluded the death was not an accident.

Mason Beach suffered a head injury just minutes after his mother left him at West's home day care in Wentzville in September 2009. West told investigators Mason had fallen down carpeted stairs. There were no adult witnesses besides West in the home at the time. The cause of death by the medical examiner was listed as blunt force trauma, but West was not charged with a crime at the time.

In February 2012, Mason's family won a $707,000 civil suit against West after a jury decided West was negligent in caring for Mason. It was among the highest wrongful-death awards ever given in St. Charles County, though it was doubtful whether the family would be able to collect because West's homeowner's insurance did not cover her business and West had few assets in her name. Neither West nor her husband testified at the hearing.

During the trial St. Charles County Medical Examiner Mary Case testified that Mason's head injuries -- including retinal hemorrhaging, damage to both optic nerves and bleeding, swelling and shifting of the brain -- were all conclusive with an inflicted injury and the impact from a fall down the stairs could not have caused them.

Lohmar said Case also would testify in the criminal trial. He said his office had been working with her and other medical professionals who concurred such injuries could not be caused by the accident West described to police.

Mason was one of the subjects of a 2011-12 Post-Dispatch investigation of unlicensed home day cares in Missouri. Dozens of child deaths from 2007 to 2011 were in unlicensed home day cares where caregivers were not required to have training, insurance or adhere to safety standards. The newspaper's investigation showed Missouri has some of the weakest child care regulations in the nation, allowing the bulk of Missouri children to enroll in unregulated day cares.

In 2012 Mason's parents, Brad and Rebecca Beach, lamented that the caregiver had not been charged with a crime by then-Prosecutor Jack Banas. The couple said they decided to sue West in part to bring attention to Mason's death.

The parents attended West's bond reduction hearing Monday. In a prepared statement, Rebecca Beach told the court the family had missed out on years of milestones for Mason. She said it was unfair that West would be able to go home to her kids given Mason can never come back to them.

"We're happy that Tim Lohmar took the case over and is trying to get the justice Mason deserves," she said.

Joel Currier is a police and crime reporter for STLtoday.com and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter here: @joelcurrier

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