Two Wake County Childcare Workers Arrested in Separate Child Safety Cases

A child died at an unlicensed Wendell daycare in December 2024, and according to Wake County authorities, the woman running it never made the call state law required within 24 hours.

Tamika Fowler, 47, faces multiple child-welfare-violation charges after investigators say she failed to report the child's death to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services as mandated under N.C. General Statute § 110-102.1. That statute requires any childcare operator, licensed or not, to notify the state Secretary of DHHS within 24 hours of a child's death in care. The alleged failure is sharpest precisely because Fowler's operation was unlicensed, placing it entirely outside the routine inspection schedule that might have surfaced warning signs earlier.

In a separate and unrelated case, the Wake County Sheriff's Office charged Ashley Nicole Taris, 24, of Raleigh, with negligent child abuse causing serious bodily injury, a felony-level charge. Taris, a former teacher at a KinderCare Learning Center in Wake County, is accused of placing a child in a cross-legged sitting position last August in a manner that caused a lower-leg fracture.

Both arrests were reported April 8, 2026, and together the cases map two distinct failure points in Wake County's childcare landscape: one rooted in a provider operating with no state oversight at all, and one inside a licensed national chain that followed regulatory protocols yet still left the accused teacher in the classroom for months after a child was injured.

KinderCare's statement confirmed that timeline directly. The company said it notified the child's family and appropriate agencies immediately after the August incident and that, following state guidance, Taris "was briefly allowed to continue teaching in accordance with an approved safety plan." Licensing officials contacted KinderCare in October 2025 and directed the company to remove Taris from the classroom. She was placed on administrative leave immediately, never returned to the center, and is no longer a KinderCare employee.

That sequence, a fractured leg in August followed by classroom removal in October, is not uncommon in how North Carolina licensing investigations proceed. It is nonetheless a sobering illustration of the gap between an incident and a formal response that parents have no easy way to monitor in real time.

To check whether a Wake County childcare facility is licensed and review its full inspection and violation history, use the NC DHHS child care facility lookup at ncchildcare.ncdhhs.gov. Search by facility name, county, or zip code to see current license status, star rating, and records of every DCDEE visit, including whether violations were cited and corrected. To file a complaint about any childcare provider, contact the DCDEE directly at (800) 859-0829, the in-state complaint line, or (919) 814-6300. To report suspected child abuse or neglect in a care setting, call Wake County Child Protective Services at (919) 212-7990. After hours and on weekends, call 911 and state that you are making a CPS report.

For families using informal or home-based arrangements, Fowler's case removes any ambiguity: no license means no public inspection record, no star rating, and no compliance trail. In Wendell, that gap allegedly meant a child's death went unreported until investigators found out on their own.

Both Fowler and Taris will proceed through the Wake County court system. The Wake County Sheriff's Office is the primary contact for case updates on both arrests.