Nanny Jailed After Parents Secretly Tape Alleged Abuse

LA PALMA — The questions started three months ago, when Irene Lynch came home to find her infant daughter with second-degree burns on the back of her hand. She noticed other suspicious signs too: bruises, eyes swollen from crying, severe and persistent diaper rash, frequent nightmares.

She didn’t want to believe her trusted nanny was abusing little Amber, but after a while the evidence was too great to ignore.

“We were giving her the benefit of the doubt because she was so nice with Amber and Amber was so happy with her,” Lynch said of nanny Elva Ochoa Zaragoza, who cared for the 9-month-old baby since she was 2 months old. “But one day when I was having an argument with my teenage daughter, I raised my hand and Amber flinched--and nobody in this house touches her. Within 48 hours, we got the video camera.”

Lynch and her husband, Robert Cruz, bought a tiny surveillance video camera hidden inside an alarm clock. They trained it on the living room, where Amber was normally left in a playpen, and loaded it with a four-hour tape.

What they saw after only one day shocked the couple, and led them to call police immediately.

“As soon as we left the house, she became mean and careless right away,” said Lynch, who also has two teenage daughters. “First she grabbed my daughter by the wrists and threw her on the couch, and she just left her there unattended. For a while my daughter was just going back and forth on the couch by herself. She could have fallen.”

The nanny spent an hour exercising in front of the television, turning up the volume to drown out the baby’s cries, Lynch said. Then she grabbed pillows and blankets from the parents’ bedroom and rested on the couch, returning the crying baby to the playpen and hitting her when she wouldn’t stop crying.

“In four hours, I never saw her change the diaper,” Lynch said.

Police arrested Zaragoza the following workday, when she reported as usual to the couple’s La Palma home. She was arraigned Thursday on child endangerment charges and is being held in lieu of $25,000 bail in the Orange County Women’s Jail. She could not be reached for an interview.

Lynch has already hired another nanny, recommended by a friend who is a police officer, and advised her that the video camera may be used at any time.

Zaragoza, 34, worked as a nanny for six years and came highly recommended by friends of the family, Lynch said. “If you knew this lady, she was so nice and so caring, you would never believe this could happen. I feel so bad for her. I think she has paid enough, but my husband doesn’t think so. He’s really angry. He couldn’t even watch the video.”

She said Amber showed no signs of fear or distress when Zaragoza arrived each morning for the full-time, $125-a-week job. In fact, the baby usually appeared delighted to see her, Lynch said.

Nevertheless, the burned hand--which Zaragoza blamed on a splash of hot coffee--along with bruises and the diaper rash made Lynch suspect something was wrong. She interviewed several other nannies to replace her, but then decided the scalding was an accident.

Now she believes the neglect had been going on for weeks, if not months.

“If I thought it was one bad day, I don’t think I would have had the feeling I had for so long, and I probably wouldn’t have spent the [$750] on the camera.”

Lynch said she considered quitting her job and staying home to care for Amber herself. “It’s hard because all the kids need monetary support for their activities and for college,” she said. “I try to do the right thing, but it’s hard to know what the right thing is anymore.”

Leonora Weiss, owner of International Nannies in Fullerton, said parents should dismiss nannies right away if they believe something is wrong. She encourages parents to make surprise visits home if they don’t have a surveillance camera.

“If something is not right, it would come up right away, and I would act on it right away. I wouldn’t wait,” she said. “If there are any doubts, I don’t care what the reason is, that’s enough to replace her.”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Kimberly Sanchez.