Suspected daycare abuser’s long history of violations

Piper Heath, East Helena Monitor, 05/14/26

An East Helena child care operation whose owner faces child sexual assault charges accumulated recurring safety violations over several years and a 2022 complaint alleging corporal punishment and verbal abuse, according to state filings.

David Carl Simpkins, 68, faces eight felony counts of child sexual assault from 2005 to 2014, according to court documents. Arraigned in Lewis & Clark County District Court on March 17 after posting a $150,000 bond, his trial is set to begin Aug. 31.  

PaPa’s Day Care, which operated out of Simpkins’ East Helena home at 1205 E. Clark, was first licensed in November 2004, with lapses before relicensing in May 2010 through July 2022, according to records from the state Department of Public Health and Human Services

The Monitor obtained the state filings, including Child Care Licensing inspection reports from 2017 to 2022 and the mid-2022 complaint, via a public records request. The documents do not detail any sexual assault, but cite repeated, troubling violations and an array of abuses, pointing toward weak state oversight and enforcement. 

The complaint is anonymous, but the details suggest it came from a regular visitor to PaPa’s, such as an employee or child parent. It alleges Simpkins often employed physical punishments, including spanking children, hitting and shoving their heads and striking them with a wooden spoon he called “Holio.” 

Simpkins was verbally abusive, regularly calling the children “dumb—, bastards, a—holes, little b—, stupid, dumb,” asserts the complaint, characterizing his behavior as “humiliating, frightening and damaging.” The complaint alleges that he carried a gun while transporting children and that loaded firearms were accessible to the children, including handguns kept in an unlocked file cabinet in a room sometimes used for naps. 

The complainant said they had video evidence of these behaviors, as Simpkins had granted them access to his home security system. According to DPHHS, the complaint prompted a July 2022 investigation, but three days after it began Simpkins terminated his license, triggering the end of the state inquiry.  

A continued investigation may have surfaced the sexual assault accusations before Child Protective Services reported them to law enforcement in 2025. 

Under the DPHHS’ child care licensing program, registered providers are required to undergo annual renewal inspections, during which licensors check facilities against a standardized survey covering health and safety, staffing ratios, records and the physical environment. 

PaPa’s annual inspections show deficiencies over multiple years. In 2017, a licensor found a fire extinguisher below minimum classification, a smoke detector missing from a room where a child was sleeping, an unsafe swing set and incomplete records for an infant in care. 

A 2018 inspection found pesticides accessible to children on the front porch, medication in an unlocked cabinet, an unsanitized diaper changing surface and missing attendance records. A smoke detector noted missing from a back bedroom where a child was sleeping in 2017 was also cited in the 2019 inspection, when inspectors again found children napping in that room. 

They also noted the room lacked adequate exits, a deficiency first cited at the facility’s initial inspection in 2012. Each time, Simpkins told inspectors the room was not part of the daycare. In his 2019 plan of correction, he wrote that children would not be allowed to nap there.

While the 2021 and 2022 renewal inspections found no formal deficiencies, the 2021 report noted exposed tree roots in the outdoor area and a missing emergency supply bag, but did not cite PaPa’s for the violations. 

In response, Simpkins seemed to cooperate. After each inspection that found deficiencies, he submitted written plans of correction that state licensors accepted: promising to replace a fire extinguisher, repair and anchor a swingset and start keeping food menus on file. 

But the system of citing violations and accepting corrective plans failed to prevent the same problems from resurfacing. The 2022 complaint suggests conditions the state had repeatedly flagged remained unresolved years later. Had they been temporarily fixed? Should that matter?

Grace Decker, director of Montana Advocates for Children, a statewide child care policy coalition, previously worked as a professional development specialist with a local child care resource and referral agency – a type of position that no longer exists. 

She said the situations she saw addressed through corrective action plans tended to involve supervision issues, behavior guidance, and physical environment or clutter management. The violations cited at PaPa’s inspections included several that went further than that.

One might imagine that multiple violations over several years – or a single egregious violation – would result in license revocation and closure. But what the records show is a pattern of deficiencies, corrective plans and continued operation, with no indication that any of Simpkins’ persistent violations triggered formal enforcement action. 

State administrative rules that took effect in May 2025 outline grounds on which DPHHS may deny, suspend, or revoke a license – including when a provider fails to protect a child’s health and welfare, poses a risk to children’s safety or fails to report suspected abuse within 24 hours. DPHHS Communications Director Jon Ebelt said similar grounds existed under the rules in effect in 2022.

Ebelt said a tiered enforcement framework adopted in 2023 introduced a formal seven-day response window for health and safety complaints – no such deadline had previously existed – and that both the severity of a violation and a provider’s history of prior violations now factor into the level of enforcement response.

Even setting aside the 2022 complaint’s more serious allegations, several deficiencies found during annual inspections (pesticides accessible to children on a front porch, an unlocked medication cabinet within children’s reach, and a room without adequate exits where inspectors found children sleeping across multiple inspection cycles) would appear to meet that standard.

Ashley Peña-Larsen, director of Rocky Mountain Development Council’s Head Start program, a federally funded early childhood program operating licensed classrooms across the Helena area, including in East Helena, explained the limits of state inspections. 

“Inspections are an important part of making sure programs are safe and meeting regulations, but they’re really just a snapshot in time,” she said in an email. “A short visit can’t always capture what a program looks like day-to-day, the relationships between staff and children, the quality of teaching, or how consistently practices are followed.”

At PaPa’s May 2022 renewal inspection – the most recent shared by the state – licensor Nataliya Mikota checked all 36 items on the survey tool as compliant in 30 minutes, according to her report. The very next month the complaint detailed above was filed with the state. 

It alleges that Simpkins deep cleaned the home only ahead of inspections, with floors otherwise going months without being properly cleaned or vacuumed. It also alleges that Simpkins allowed children to use the back bedroom – the same room he had repeatedly told inspectors was off-limits – to sleep, play and use smartphones.  

The complaint details that an infant went unchanged from dropoff at 7:45 a.m. until nearly 1:45 p.m., that children were left unattended in a vehicle, and that a baby fell from a couch during daycare hours with no incident report filed and no notification to parents. 

It also states that a person described as a registered violent offender was present at the facility during daycare hours on multiple occasions. This echoes a finding from a 2022 audit by the Legislative Audit Division, which found that DPHHS had failed to detect registered violent or sexual offenders living at the same addresses as licensed daycare providers. 

The audit found that when auditors flagged the problem to DPHHS staff, employees said they could not act because no formal complaint had been filed. DPHHS Director Charlie Brereton acknowledged the failures surfaced by the audit before the Legislative Audit Committee and pledged that procedures had since been changed.

Also in 2022, an assessment of the child care licensing system commissioned by DPHHS found that joint investigations between child care licensing and child welfare were poorly coordinated, that enforcement lacked meaningful bite, and that negative licensing actions were “not taken nearly enough in situations where children are at risk,” as The Monitor reported in March. 

Ebelt said the department now has dedicated staff for handling complaints and had updated its joint investigation protocols with the Child and Family Services Division. 

He said the department considers its current level of 12 licensors statewide, each overseeing an average of roughly 85 facilities, adequate. Ebelt declined to provide complaint and enforcement data, and The Monitor has since filed an additional public records request.

Decker said she has been told a different story by licensors themselves. “I have been told by licensors that they feel each licensor’s caseload is larger than they would like,” she stated in an email. 

Peña-Larsen said enforcement responses also vary based on the severity of the issue. “Sometimes it’s a corrective action plan and follow-up monitoring,” she said. “In more serious situations, licensing can place a provider on probation, suspend their license, or revoke it entirely.” 

The records obtained by The Monitor do not indicate that Simpkins’ license was ever suspended or that he was placed on probation prior to his terminating it in July 2022.

Peña-Larsen also said the complaint process works reasonably well for licensed programs, but that’s only part of the picture. “The bigger challenge is that there are a lot of child care situations operating outside the licensing system,” she said. “Those don’t have the same regulations or safety requirements, so there’s naturally less oversight.”

Had Simpkins continued operating after July 2022, he may not have needed a license at all. Inspection records show he had five children in care at his 2021 renewal and two at his final inspection in May 2022. HB 556, passed by the 2023 Legislature, would soon take effect, raising the threshold at which in-home providers are required to seek a license from three children to six. 

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jennifer Carlson, R-Manhattan, argued that in small communities neighbors know who they trust to watch their children and that child care facilities in such places should be able to operate outside the existing rules. 

Opponents countered that removing the licensing requirement meant those providers would no longer be subject to background checks, home safety inspections or first-aid training. 

Under the new law, a provider operating at that scale would not be required to be licensed at all, unless they participated in state subsidy programs. Decker said drop-in programs and most after-school care are also exempt from licensing, leaving the state with no accounting of how many unregulated providers are operating.

“We’ve made a decision as a state that we don’t have to look at them,” Decker said. “We don’t have any idea how many of them there are. We don’t know how many of them are providing quality care versus care that is substandard. We truly just don’t know.”

Decker also said Montana Advocates for Children has grown increasingly concerned about the direction of Montana’s child care regulations. In addition to raising the unlicensed provider threshold, recent legislative sessions have allowed higher child-to-adult ratios, made changes to vaccination requirements and shifted age and qualification standards for caregivers. “Recent shifts in regulations have been concerning,” she said.

The Monitor reached Simpkins by phone but he declined to comment on the record. His case is not Montana’s only recent instance of alleged child abuse tied to daycare. In June 2025, a woman operating an unlicensed daycare near Billings was sentenced to five years of probation and six months of deferred jail time after pleading guilty to felony assault and misdemeanor child endangerment. 

Two years ago, the state investigated a Billings daycare after a video of two toddlers fighting, apparently encouraged by employees, circulated on social media. Both employees were fired.