Child Care in Vacant Lot Brings Woman’s Arrest

Sheriff’s deputies Thursday arrested a 40-year-old woman who apparently operated a child-care center and tutoring service in a vacant lot and an abandoned building in Bellflower.

Dempsy Lee Spencer was booked on suspicion of child neglect and child endangering and bail was set at $5,000, investigators said.

Deputies arrested Spencer and turned the children over to their parents after a resident complained about children wandering around the vacant lot, Deputy Ron Brooks said.

Spencer apparently informed the parents, who dropped off their children in the mornings, that she was in the process of renovating the abandoned building.

Spencer had provided day care and tutoring to some of the children--who ranged in age from 3 to 15--for more than a year at another location in the city, but for unknown reasons had recently left there, Brooks said. No evidence could be found that Spencer had a business license or a license to operate a day-care center, the deputy added.

There was no evidence of child abuse, investigators said.

Some parents described Spencer “as a very good teacher and the (tuition) was cheap,” Brooks said.

One parent, Joseph Johns of Carson, said he paid $100 a month for Spencer to tutor his 15-year-old son, Vincent.