Friday, March 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The Clark County Commission approved a home child-care license for a baby sitter now charged with murdering a child after county investigators didn't disclose a past child abuse complaint against the woman.
A complaint was filed about two years ago against 33-year-old Alica Daneen Wegner with the county's Child Protective Services office, but when Metro Police detectives checked Wegner's background, the complaint didn't show up.
That's probably because unsubstantiated complaints are not reported to the state's child abuse registry, said Adrienne Cox, assistant director of the county Department of Family and Youth Services, which oversees Child Protective Services.
Wegner has been charged with the murder of 14-month-old Kierra Harrison, for whom she was baby sitting in her home on Mountain Ross near Twain Avenue and Tenaya Way, along with her own three children, ages 6 weeks, 2 1/2 and 6. Wegner called police Monday and told them Kierra fell and was unresponsive. Kierra died Wednesday.
Sgt. Walt Quering said an investigator ran state and local background checks on Wegner as well as her husband, Douglas Wegner, when Wegner applied for a child-care license. Nothing showed up, he said.
"Their records were clean. The only thing showing on Wegner's husband was a traffic accident from 1992," Quering said.
Metro's investigation was completed in December. The County Commission approved a child-care license for Wegner on Jan. 21.
"We had no area of concern," Quering said. "Since then, we found out there had been a report (of abuse) to Child Protective Services, but it didn't show in our records or the state's records. I'm concerned that it didn't show up."
If it had, restrictions could have been put on Wegner's license, he said. If nothing else, Quering said a notation could have been made just to make commissioners aware of the complaint.
County Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates said commissioners "depend on information that is gathered from the police department and information that is gathered from our staff."
"We have to respond to whatever we have in front of us," Atkinson Gates said. "Certainly the board of commissioners doesn't want anything to happen to children in this valley. It's important to us to keep them safe."
She said what will probably happen with the case now is that the county will bring "something back to us asking us to rescind the issuance of that license, and the issues that got unchecked, we'll deal with them at that time."
Cox said when a complaint is substantiated, the paperwork is sent to the state to be entered into the state's registry documenting it. For complaints that investigators don't find to be substantiated, nothing is forwarded, but a file on the complaint is kept with the county.
The complaint was filed against Wegner on an allegation of abuse of her own children, not for someone she watched.
Metro's Quering said he wants to make sure that everything is done to prevent a license from slipping through the cracks in the future. While he said Metro did not fail in its job, he said he personally wants to ensure it doesn't happen again.
"My angle is that when I come back and see something like this happen, I want to make sure in the future we haven't missed something," he said.
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