When a Gilroy childcare operator was arrested on drug charges,
it took three months before state regulators shuttered her
business, Gigglebox Daycare.
Gilroy – When a Gilroy childcare operator was arrested on drug charges, it took three months before state regulators shuttered her business, Gigglebox Daycare.
In those three months, Jody Duell tested positive for methamphetamine, was arrested for drunken driving, told parents she was a princess under FBI surveillance, and ultimately abandoned her clients, stranding dozens of bewildered parents outside her home on Lone Deer Way the morning of March 19.
State regulators say the process worked.
“Three months looks like a lag time – but there was a lot going on behind the scenes,” said Oscar Ramirez, public information officer for the state’s Community Care Licensing Division, which licenses childcare centers. “We can’t just act on an arrest, unless it’s considered inimical to the health and safety of the clients. Everybody gets their just due, right?”
Duell tried to bring crystal methamphetamine into the South County Courthouse Dec. 22, according to Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Torres, who found a leathery, hot dog-shaped container packed with a 2-gram baggie of methamphetamine in Duell’s wooden purse.
“I advised Duell that I had to search the container,” Torres wrote in his report. Duell grew nervous, and said she’d take it back to her car. Torres refused. Duell unzipped it a few inches, then quickly closed it, never revealing its contents, Torres wrote.
“I advised her that if she did not open the container, I would take the container from her,” Torres wrote. When he did, the deputy found a Bic lighter, a glass pipe, and the baggie, loaded with crystals. Duell was charged with possession of a controlled substance and booked into county jail. Her 5-milliliter blood sample tested positive for methamphetamine.
Strange behavior preceded closure
It’s unclear exactly how much later state regulators learned of Duell’s arrest. Ramirez said the department received preliminary information on the arrest in December, but needed additional information before proceeding. If the charges didn’t stick, he explained, regulators would have wronged Duell by yanking her license.
Duell was next arrested Jan. 28, and charged with driving under the influence. State regulators were notified of the second arrest in January, said Ramirez. Once again, they needed more information to act. By late March, Duell had been convicted of both charges, and regulators were ready to step in.
But by then, Duell had already skipped town. Twenty-two-year-old Angelica Medina, who worked at Gigglebox as Duell’s assistant, recalls coming to work March 19 to find a dozen dazed parents surrounding Duell’s locked home, a swarm of police cruisers forming around them. That day, investigators visited Gigglebox for the first time since Duell’s December arrest, Ramirez said. Duell didn’t return home until April 3, according to Gilroy Police Sgt. Jim Gillio, the department’s spokesman.
Weeks before she disappeared, Duell’s behavior began to alarm parents. She stopped showering, said Medina, and didn’t brush her hair. She said someone wanted to kill her, but wasn’t sure who, Medina added. One mother pulled her daughter out of Gigglebox, unnerved by Duell’s rambling.
“She said she was the princess of Cuba, or something,” the mother recalled. She spoke anonymously, fearing retribution. “She said the FBI was watching her. Later she told me she planned to rob a jewelry store. Weird, weird, weird stuff.”
Another mother became nervous after she lost her job, and began spending more and more time at Gigglebox, listening to Duell’s “weird stories.”
Neither mother called Gilroy police until March 19, when Duell disappeared. Duell reportedly charged $180 to $220 a week for childcare, and cared for up to 20 children daily.
convictions led to Shut Down
CCLD Investigator Jeffrey Hiratsuka cited a laundry-list of reasons in his petition to close Gigglebox, submitted to the court March 27.
Besides her two recent arrests, Duell had been convicted of resisting arrest in June 2006. To work as a childcare provider, Californians must submit to a background check. Any crime other than a minor traffic violation requires the provider to apply for an exemption, submitting a sheaf of documents to support their case. Eleven percent of California’s 230,000 childcare applicants requested criminal exemptions in 2006, according to Ramirez, and nearly 37 percent of those applications were granted.
Not all crimes are exemptible: Fifty-one crimes, ranging from carjacking to elder abuse, bar an applicant from working in childcare, period. Drug crimes are not on the list.
Medina, Duell’s assistant, said she was never fingerprinted and never submitted to a background check. Originally, she’d applied to help clean Gigglebox, but ended up spending hours caring for the children, especially as Duell’s behavior grew more and more erratic. At one point, Medina said she reassured agitated parents that she, not Duell, was really taking care of the kids. Medina has no childcare training.
Duell also had allowed two convicts access to the childcare, including Beau Ramsey, currently listed in Gilroy’s Most Wanted on a $50,000 warrant for forgery, Hiratsuka charged.
“They had not been fingerprinted, had no criminal record clearance or exemption, and no child abuse index clearance,” wrote Hiratsuka. “Both have criminal convictions for which no criminal record exemption has been granted.”
Eric Duell, Jody Duell’s ex-husband, has cited the closure of Gigglebox in his petition for full custody of their two children. He contends that three months between Duell’s arrest and Gigglebox’s closure was far too long – especially with children in the mix.
“How come there isn’t a red flag that pops up automatically?” he asked. “I guess parents have to read the police blotter. You don’t know who you’re leaving your kids with.”
