{"id":312342,"date":"2026-10-23T01:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T01:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312342\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T01:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T01:06:14","slug":"child-care-center-employee-in-alexander-county-charged-with-assault-on-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312342\/","title":{"rendered":"Child care center employee in Alexander County charged with assault on a child"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ALEXANDER COUNTY, N.C. \u2014 An employee of a Bethlehem child development center has been charged with assaulting a child, according to the Alexander County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p>The sheriff\u2019s office said it received a report Oct. 10 of alleged child abuse at Mt. Bethel Methodist Church Child Development Center. Following an investigation, deputies arrested Holly Marie Payne, 36, of Taylorsville, on Oct. 21.<\/p>\n<p>                                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wcnc.com\/assets\/shared-images\/icons\/arrow-circle-down.svg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                                This story continues below.<\/p>\n<p>Payne, an employee of the center, is charged with misdemeanor assault on a child under 12, the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n<p>She was initially held at the Alexander County Detention Center on a $10,000 secured bond. Authorities said she has since posted bond and been released.<\/p>\n<p>Payne\u2019s first court appearance is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 23.<\/p>\n<p>The sheriff\u2019s office did not release details about the alleged assault, including the age of the child, whether the child was hurt or what led investigators to make an arrest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALEXANDER COUNTY, N.C. \u2014 An employee of a Bethlehem child development center has been charged with assaulting a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-312342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}