Delaware County Daily Times - Mar 23, 2000 Article #2

Katelyn's day care playmates recall a girl who said ‘mama'

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Thursday, March 23, 2000

Author: KATHLEEN E. CAREY ; Of the Times Staff

UPPER CHICHESTER -- As part of the daily schedule, Shelia Clendening gathers the group of six toddlers in her care for a game at her Second Avenue home.

"Every day, when we do the ABC's, they know K is for Katelyn ," Clendening said. "They all know K is for Katelyn ."

That's Katelyn Selena Rivera -Helton, the 20-month-old girl who used to scamper among them and whose disappearance is at the heart of murder charges brought yesterday against her father, Robert Rivera .

The memory of Katelyn and her abduction from the day care center seven months ago haunts her playmates and her caregivers to the point they hope the worst is not true.

"I have a lot of mixed emotions," Clendening said. "I don't want to think that he did it."

It's difficult enough trying to stay strong for the kids. Clendening said the children, ranging from 14 months to 5 years old, saw Rivera often. He seemed like a normal dad, picking Katelyn up like other fathers. "Then, out of the blue, you have this guy coming through the back door and pushing kids," she said.

Aug. 10, 1999, is a day Clendening tries to forget. But she can't.

It was a few minutes before 11 a.m. when Rivera came to the front door of the brown and white home. Clendening's 22-year-old daughter, Jamie, wouldn't let him inside.

Clendening was in the kitchen preparing lunch.

Rivera then ran to the back where he found another entry. "He bodily came through my door," Clendening said. "He broke the wood. (He was) hollering, ‘I want my daughter.'"

Clendening said he pushed two little kids out of the way and scooped up Katelyn standing on the living room floor. A 9-year-old herded the other children into a corner, trying to get them out of harm's way.

The family child care provider said she didn't think Katelyn understood what was going on. But, after she and her father left, the other children were crying. Although she knew differently, Clendening tried to calm them, "I told them it was okay because it was Katelyn 's dad."

Now, as the case becomes grimmer, the children continue to grapple with the memory of a friend.

"They still talk about Katelyn ," Clendening said. "They miss her."

They miss playing ring-around-the-rosy with her. They miss hearing her say, "Mama" and "kitty."

Clendening misses feeding her. " Katelyn had favorite foods," she said. "She was my fruit eater. Canteloupe, strawberries, bananas, vegetables, onions, she loved all kinds of fruits and vegetables."

The children, Clendening said, understand Rivera is in jail because he put Katelyn someplace where nobody can find her and he won't tell where she is.

Clendening, on the other hand, doesn't understand. She holds onto a hope that someone out there may be harboring a sweet, fruit-loving baby -- maybe somewhere in Puerto Rico.

"I try not to think about it," she said. "You never know what a person is capable of doing. You'd have to be really sick. I keep hoping and I keep praying that he wasn't crazy enough."

Clendening wonders if there was something she could have done to save the little girl. "I wish I had notice he was coming," she said, adding, "What could I have done to keep him from coming in?"

She's tried to prevent anything like that from happening again.

The wooden door in back has been replaced.

"I have a steel door now," Clendening said. "It's going to take them a little bit if they want to get through it."

Even her daughter still grapples with the incident. Jamie sleeps with a golf club and a baseball bat in her bedroom, ready to use at a second's notice. "She said, ‘Nobody's getting anybody else out of here,'" Clendening said.