Suspect Had a History of Roughness

The former child-care worker held in the kidnap-murder of a Northridge boy had a history of rough behavior with students, once dragging a child across a floor and another time forcing children to clean up vomit, according to PTA records.

Officials of the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn. said Wednesday that child-care employees had over the last year recorded numerous complaints about the behavior of Gregory Scott Smith, who had worked part-time at 10 of the 17 day-care centers operated by the PTA in the San Fernando Valley.

Smith, 21, of Canoga Park is suspected of killing 8-year-old Paul Bailly, who disappeared after being dropped off by his mother at the Darby Avenue School day-care center Friday. The boy was later found burned beyond recognition in a field near Simi Valley in Ventura County.

Some of the complaints recorded in log books date back nearly a year. In an April, 1989, incident at the Darby school, Smith dragged a girl across the floor, causing rug burns on her shoulder. In another instance, Smith was reported to have made a boy cry after hitting him with a ball during a rough game of dodge-ball.

Smith, who has not been charged in the killing, was fired March 6 from his job as a child-care assistant at the Darby school after a series of complaints by superiors, including two incidents involving the victim, PTA officials said.

Records from February show that Smith had been reprimanded by superiors for wrongly punishing Paul Bailly. In another instance, Smith was reported to have made a cruel remark to the boy about the way he was dressed.

Although child-care officials had known about some of the complaints involving Smith as early as last fall, other incidents are only now being discovered from a review of logbooks kept at day-care centers, said Harold Kuhn, executive director of the PTA’s Project Latchkey, a nationally recognized school child-care program.

Earlier knowledge of the complaints, however, could not have prevented Paul’s death, PTA officials said.

Before working at Darby, Smith was dismissed from an afternoon job at Chatsworth Park School on Dec. 7. His firing there followed repeated complaints by the director that Smith failed to obey orders to curtail his occasionally rough treatment of children, Kuhn said.

Four days later, a parent at Andasol Avenue School complained that Smith, who was working as a substitute there, had forced two children to clean up another’s vomit as punishment for “giving Greg a hard time,” according to a log record of the incident.

Kuhn said that after learning of the incident he immediately restricted Smith from working at other schools as a substitute, but allowed him to keep his position at Darby Avenue School.

“I called the mother and apologized and told her that he would never be at Andasol again,” said Kuhn, who called the punishment used by Smith “terrible judgment.”

Kuhn said he did not fire Smith at the time because the center director at Darby did not believe Smith to be a problem worker.

“If I blew it, I blew it,” Kuhn said. “But I don’t think I blew it. . . . It is easy now to say . . . I should have fired him.’ . . . But we tried to give due process. We wanted to be understanding of Greg and help him.”

In addition to the recorded complaints, at least five PTA child-care staff members had complained about Smith’s behavior since last fall. Kuhn said he could not recall all of those complaints.

But Cecelia Mansfield, president of the 31st District PTA, said there “was a clear pattern that emerged under a number of different directors” of facilities where Smith worked.

“Smith was known to have problems and that he had to be watched,” said a latchkey staff member who asked not to be identified. “He could not be trusted. I would think the majority of the staff felt that way--anyone who came in contact with him. The problem is we don’t have any formal way of telling them. There was no procedure.”

Another staff member said: “We don’t have a formal procedure for making complaints. Obviously, we need one. Maybe we will now.”

Smith was arrested a day after Paul’s body was found. Handcuffs, which appeared to have been used on the boy, were found near the body, investigators said. Smith is scheduled to be arraigned Monday and is being held without bail at the Ventura County jail. He has denied, through an attorney, any involvement in the slaying.

Warren Lovell, chief medical examiner for Ventura County, said Wednesday that the boy was already dead when set on fire. The exact cause of his death was expected to be known today.

Before being hired for the PTA program in September, 1988, Smith had worked as a volunteer for the Los Angeles Unified School District at the Nevada Avenue Elementary School in Canoga Park.

Smith had worked as an unpaid volunteer in the day-care program in the spring semester of 1988 to gain an experience credit in his child-care studies at Chatsworth High School, school Principal Tom Stevens said.

But Stevens said Smith was let go at the end of the school year because of problems he had with third-graders he helped care for.

“He started out OK but before long we started noticing he was kind of rough with the kids,” Stevens said. “He was sharp with them. Sometimes he would grab them by the arm and get a little physical.”

Stevens said some of the children cried after being handled by Smith and there were a handful of complaints from parents. When Smith’s high school instructor asked if Smith could continue at the school the next year, Stevens declined.

“I told them no because he was causing us too many problems,” Stevens said. “ We had gotten a few calls from parents. When you start getting that you terminate immediately.”

PTA officials said they did not know of Smith’s troubles at the Nevada school at the time he was hired. Smith went on to work 17 months for the PTA program. His firing came after Kuhn received a report from Darby that in late February he had left the children unsupervised to help a woman with her car alarm.

Kuhn said Smith became angry when he was told he was fired. According to a written account of the dismissal in PTA records, Smith threatened Kuhn.

“I will get my anger out on you . . . ,” the report quotes Smith. “I don’t get my anger out on children.”