BEAUMONT, Texas — A babysitter and her friend were both arrested Tuesday, March 19 after the Beaumont Police Department received reports of the sexual abuse of three children between the ages of 7-10.
BPD launched an investigation after receiving the reports back in January, as well as an additional report about a 9-year-old in February.
The investigation revealed that 41-year-old Patricia Eglin, was running an unregistered babysitting service out of her home in the 1300 block of Live Oak.
During this time she was looking after up to 12 children while allowing 51-year-old Troy Howard who was a registered sex offender, to live there and have full access to the children since December.
According to BPD several children had made outcries to Eglin of numerous acts of sexual abuse perpetuated by Howard, but they fell on deaf ears.
Instead, Eglin allegedly told the children to keep quiet and chose not to report the abuse to police.
Eglin also reportedly let Howard continue to live in her home and give him full access to the children for months after the first report was made, according to BPD.
During their investigation, BPD found that Howard was in violation of his sex offender registry and were able to put out a warrant and quickly arrest him March 5 and he was later interviewed.
On March 19 BPD Special Crimes Detectives obtained another warrant, this time on both Howard and Eglin for two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Now both are being charged with three additional counts of indecency with child sexual contact.
Eglin is facing five charges in total, two for aggravated sexual assault of a child and three for indecency with child sexual contact. Her bond has been set by Judge Collins at $1,255,000.
Howard is facing six charges, one for failure to comply with sex offender registry, two for aggravated sexual assault of a child and three for indecency child sexual contact. His bond has been set at $1,685,000.
Howard was still in jail at the time and Eglin was arrested by detectives at her home.
Detectives believe that there may be more victims that have not been identified.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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