On Friday, June 12, police arrested Ian William Moore, a teacher at Kid’s Country Daycare in Normandy Park, on charges of raping a 5-year-old girl in the facility’s classroom.

The allegations were reported to authorities on June 5 after the victim’s father walked into a classroom and found Moore huddled over his daughter behind a bookshelf. When the father asked what was happening Moore explained that he and the child were having a “tickle fight”.

Once the victim was away from Kid’s Country she described to her father that Moore had had his hands down her pants and that there were other instances in the past of him touching her inappropriately. The parent contacted Child Protective Services with the allegations who then began an investigation with the Normandy Park Police Department.

Moore, 30, currently lives in Kent. It is unknown how long he has worked with Kid’s Country or what his criminal background looks like. He is currently being held on $200,000 bail in the King County Jail on charges of First Degree Child Rape.

The Highline Times reached out to Kid’s Country, located at 17855 1 Ave. S., and spoke briefly with Kristina Speer, the location’s Director for the last year. While she would not comment on Moore’s current employment status or how long he had been employed with the company she did mention that every employee undergoes a standard background check that includes fingerprinting.

Speer then directed our inquiries to the corporate office for Kid’s Country in Snohomish where we were connected with a supervisor named Jeff (last name unknown). Jeff refused to answer any of our questions regarding Moore or the Normandy Park location. When asked to elaborate on the background check process that Kid’s Country uses for their employees Jeff avoided the question and quickly hung up the phone.

“We’re continuing our investigation this week and it will probably extend into next week as well. We will be working with the Child Protective Services and King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to try and make sure that we are covering all of our bases,” explained Cpt. Chris Gaddis with the Normandy Park PD.

The next obvious concern with this case is whether or not there are other child victims of Moore’s that have not come forward yet. When asked if the investigation had led them to believe that other children had been victimized at the facility Cpt. Gaddis was careful not to give a definitive answer.

“Part of our role and responsibility here is we will be working with CPS and the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to make sure everything that needs to be uncovered gets uncovered. Right now the important thing was getting the suspect interviewed and in custody, if necessary, and now we can start that phase of our investigation which is getting all those rocks uncovered.”

Other local news outlets have begun reporting that many parents have been pulling their children from the Normandy Park location since news of the accusations surfaced. How soon parents were alerted of the investigation is unknown at this time.