A 3-Year-Old Drowned in an Unlicensed Daycare’s Pool. No One Watched for 20 Minutes.

On the afternoon of May 18, 2026, a 3-year-old boy named Ian Perez fell into a backyard swimming pool on Roy Rogers Road in Prairieville, Louisiana, a community southeast of Baton Rouge. According to the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office, surveillance video from the property shows the child slipped under the water and stayed there, unconscious, for roughly 20 minutes before the woman watching him pulled him out. Deputies and medics performed CPR; Ian was flown by Air Med to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The woman caring for him, the Sheriff’s Office says, was Joann Johnson, 37, who ran an in-home daycare out of the house. Investigators determined the operation was not licensed by the state — what one detective described as a “family friend arrangement” rather than a regulated childcare facility. On June 3, 2026, Johnson turned herself in and was booked into the Ascension Parish jail on one count of negligent homicide.

Johnson is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent unless and until prosecutors prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. But the case the Sheriff’s Office has laid out — built around a surveillance recording that captured the entire drowning — raises a question that reaches well beyond one tragedy: how a toddler came to be in the care of a daycare the state never inspected, and how 20 minutes can pass with no adult watching a child in a pool.

• 20 minutes — the length of time Ian Perez remained unconscious in the pool before Johnson retrieved him, according to surveillance video reviewed by investigators · Source: Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office
• $100,000 — bond set on a single count of negligent homicide; Johnson posted a 10 percent bail of $10,000 and was released · Source: WAFB 9 / Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office
• 2 to 10 years — the prison term Johnson faces if convicted, an enhanced range because the victim was under the age of 10 · Source: Louisiana negligent-homicide statute, La. R.S. 14:32

The Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office says deputies were called to the home on Roy Rogers Road shortly before 4 p.m. on May 18, 2026; the 911 call reporting a drowning came in at approximately 3:50 p.m. When they arrived, deputies and medical responders found the 3-year-old and began CPR. Ian was airlifted by Air Med to an area hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, two young children were in Johnson’s care that afternoon and were playing near the backyard pool without any flotation or safety equipment. Ian, investigators say, fell into the water. What turned a familiar summertime danger into a criminal case, deputies say, was what the property’s own surveillance camera recorded next.

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The case hinges on surveillance footage from the property. According to the Sheriff’s Office, the video shows Ian struggling in the water and then going still — and then nothing, no adult intervention, for roughly 20 minutes, until Johnson is finally seen on camera pulling his lifeless body from the pool. Detective Donovan Jackson, a spokesman for the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office, told WAFB that reviewing the recording was harrowing.

Jackson drew a sharp line between an ordinary lapse and what the video allegedly captured. A caregiver might lose sight of a child for a minute or two, he said — but a 20-minute absence of supervision around an open pool is something else entirely. That gap, the Sheriff’s Office says, is the basis for the negligent-homicide charge.

“One of the hardest parts of watching that video is seeing little Ian struggle for his life for several minutes.”

Det. Donovan Jackson · Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office, to WAFB

On June 3, 2026 — about two weeks after the drowning — Joann Johnson turned herself in and was booked into the Ascension Parish jail on one count of negligent homicide, the Sheriff’s Office announced. Her bond was set at $100,000. According to WAFB, she posted the standard 10 percent — $10,000— and was released.

Under Louisiana’s negligent-homicide statute, La. R.S. 14:32, a conviction normally carries up to five years. But the law provides an enhanced penalty — two to ten years — when the victim is under the age of 10, as Ian was. The case now moves to the 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes crimes in Ascension, Assumption, and St. James parishes, for a charging decision and any grand-jury or bill-of-information proceedings.

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The detail that turns this from a private heartbreak into a public-policy question is the daycare itself. Investigators determined that Johnson’s in-home childcare operation was not licensed by the state. In Louisiana, early-childhood care and education centers are licensed and inspected by the Louisiana Department of Education under its “Louisiana Believes” framework — a process meant to verify staffing ratios, safety standards, and, in homes with pools, the kind of barriers and supervision rules that exist precisely to prevent what happened on Roy Rogers Road.

Detective Jackson characterized the setup not as a regulated daycare but as a “family friend arrangement” — the informal, word-of-mouth care that millions of working families rely on and that almost entirely escapes inspection. No license means no state visit confirming that a pool is fenced, that a gate self-latches, or that an adult is assigned to watch the water. The trade-off in such arrangements is convenience and cost against the oversight a licensed facility is required to provide. For Ian Perez, the Sheriff’s Office account suggests, that gap proved fatal.

The investigation and arrest were handled by the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office; the prosecution falls to the parish’s elected district attorney. These are the officials whose offices are now responsible for the case — named here because accountability begins with knowing who answers for what.

“You may lose sight of them for a minute or two, maybe five minutes, but for over 20 minutes, that is a problem, and that is clear negligence.”

Det. Donovan Jackson · Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office

Ian Perez’s death sits at the intersection of two grim American statistics. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, according to the CDC, and most of those deaths happen in home swimming pools, often during brief lapses in supervision. Layered on top is the patchwork of unlicensed, informal childcare that families turn to when licensed slots are scarce or unaffordable — care that operates with none of the inspections, ratios, or pool-safety rules a licensed center must meet.

Similar cases have surfaced across the country: unlicensed in-home daycares where a child drowned in a pool that a state inspector never saw. Each prompts the same question Ascension Parish now faces — whether criminal charges against one caregiver address the underlying gap, or whether the bigger failure is a system that lets children be left, unwatched, in water that licensing rules were written to guard. Johnson’s case will be decided in a courtroom, where she remains presumed innocent. The policy question will outlast the verdict.

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Last updated June 7, 2026