Cyber tip leads officer to home daycare in a child pornography investigation

A woman accused of using her in-home daycare to provide access to victims in an ongoing child pornography investigation will be staying in jail on a $500,000 cash-only bond, despite a prosecutor’s attempt to double the bond amount. During a preliminary hearing Monday in Kanawha County Magistrate Court, Magistrate Lisa Good heard testimony from a state trooper who said he initially received a cyber tip that led to him interviewing convicted sex offender James Lewis of Putnam County. During that interview, he learned Lewis had communicated with a man named Christopher Rush through an encrypted application on his cell phone. Rush is Vanessa Beauvais’s boyfriend, who also lived with her at the South Charleston apartment where she operated the in-home daycare. Beauvais babysits children at her home and the children the trooper observed on Lewis’ phone are children she watched through her home daycare service. Eyewitness News said Rush was arrested on Feb. 11 and remains in the South Central Regional Jail on a $100,000 cash-only bond. Beauvais’ case will be heard by a grand jury.