The owner of an East Texas daycare remains in custody on child pornography charges.
Agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested Jeffery Hardy, 38, last Friday. He's being held on $50,000 bond.
"I was shocked, totally shocked," said Barbara Sheldon, a neighbor who has lived across the street from Hardy for years.
Sheldon said he and his wife opened the Krayola Corner Daycare on Danville Road in Kilgore only about a year ago.
According to an affidavit, investigators began looking into Hardy's activities after receiving a tip from an internet user. That person claimed he took part in an online chat with someone who bragged about engaging in oral sex with his own three-year-old son.
Investigators said they used instant messages to determine where that conversation originated, and the trail eventually led to Hardy's home computer.
There, they said, they found pornographic images of a boy who appears to be under the age of five.
Now they're trying to determine whether children in his care may have been harmed.
Longview police Sgt. Mike Hyko, the task force commander, said so far he has interviewed "about a dozen" parents of current and former daycare students.
Hyko declined to discuss in detail what evidence, if any, he has found.
To Barbara Sheldon, it's unthinkable that investigators will uncover any wrongdoing at the daycare.
"I went over there and it was clean. I mean, it just looked legitimate to me," said Sheldon.
While investigators try to determine what may have happened at the daycare in the past, it's clear nothing at all is happening there now. The business is shut down until further notice.
