For families residing in the quaint town of Muscatine, Iowa, during the early 2000s, one childcare center distinctly stood out from the rest.
Featured frequently in the Muscatine Journal, Ryan McFarland and his wife Lesa were known for passionately promoting their Little People daycare facility.
The Journal often highlighted the couple’s dedication in stories about their business, which operated out of their charming gray clapboard house nestled along the Mississippi River, directly across from Illinois.
This week, the community was left reeling when that same residence became the scene of a tragic murder-suicide, resulting in seven fatalities.
Ryan, now 52, reportedly took the lives of six family members before ending his own. He shared four children with Lesa, who also had two children from a previous relationship.
Authorities have yet to release the victims’ identities, but they have described the incident as ‘domestic’ in nature. Four victims were discovered at the family home, while two adult men were found at separate locations in Muscatine.
Ryan McFarland and his wife Lesa were praised in several articles in the early 2000s for the daycare facility they operated from their clapboard home in Muscatine, Iowa
Ryan had four children with Lesa, who had two other children from a prior marriage. Earlier this week, Muscatine police said Ryan killed six family members before taking his own life
Around 10 minutes before the massacre began, neighbor Melissa Weggen told the Muscatine Journal that she heard Ryan say: ‘Don’t worry about money. Everything goes away when you die.’
Cash appeared to be a concern, with Weggen saying that Ryan and Lesa held weekly yard sales.
But Ryan also had a dark past encompassing incidents far worse than mere money troubles. Fifteen years earlier, in August 2011, he was blamed for the death of a baby in his care.
The tragedy unfolded when Ryan left an eight-month-old boy called Charles Negus sleeping on a crib at Little People.
Charles was placed on his stomach, with his head propped up by a soft pillow. He ended up smothering himself.
Ryan struck a plea deal the following year, which saw a child endangerment resulting in death charge being dismissed.
He was sentenced to a year on probation, two years of unsupervised probation and a $625 fine.
In 2011, McFarland was accused of child endangerment resulting in death after eight-months-old Charles Negus died at the daycare, which ran out of the pictured Park Ave home
Ryan and Lesa McFarland (pictured in the back) ran Little People Daycare and Preschool in the 2000s
In August 2011, Ryan was blamed for the death of an eight-month-old boy that was in his care. He ended up striking a plea deal that dismissed a child endangerment resulting in death charge
The McFarlands said they started their own daycare center when they were looking for affordable options for Lisa’s sons from her previous marriage
Alan Ostergren, the Muscatine County Attorney at the time, said the evidence was not enough to conclude that McFarland had caused the eight–month–old’s death.
The state pathologist testified in court that he was unable to ‘state to a reasonable degree of medical certainty’ if Charles died from positional asphyxia or from sudden unexplained infant death, per the Muscatine Journal.
Iowa court records viewed by the Daily Mail showed that Ryan’s charge was ultimately adjudicated as an aggravated misdemeanor of child endangerment with no injuries.
The prosecutors said the plea deal saw Ryan admitting that he endangered the baby’s safety, but did not require him to admit that he caused the death.
‘This disposition was made after consultation with the victim’s family,’ Ostergren said at the time.
‘In the end, we chose the certain outcome of a negotiated guilty plea over the uncertainty outcome of a jury trial,’ he added.
Ryan could have faced up to 50 years in prison had his original felony charge stuck.
Authorities said Ryan’s license to operate a childcare service had been previously revoked by the state because he had lied on his application about not having prior felony convictions.
Ryan had been convicted in September 1994 in Illinois of burglary and attempted armed robbery.
In 2010, he was also found guilty of third–degree theft in Muscatine.
The Department of Human Services had specifically prohibited Ryan from operating the business out of his home, according to the outlet.
Few would have guessed just how dark Ryan’s past was from the way he marketed his business.
When the McFarlands opened their daycare, he was an aspiring teacher, while his wife Lesa was a physical therapist for Muscatine Physical Therapy.
The couple was looking for affordable daycare options for Lisa’s two sons from a previous marriage but had struggled.
This gave the McFarlands the idea to start their own center, which they would repeatedly tout in local press over the years.
‘It is difficult to trust anyone with your children, but when things happen with people you trust, that’s when we decided to open our daycare,’ Ryan told the Quad–City Times in October 2004.
Ryan had been convicted in September 1994 in Illinois of burglary and attempted armed robbery. He was then found guilty of third-degree theft in Muscatine in 2010
Before starting the daycare with his own family in mind, Ryan was an aspiring teacher who had graduated from Western Illinois University and had a master’s degree in education
Authorities said they believed this week’s massacre had been caused by a domestic dispute, though it was still being investigated
Ryan said he had researched daycare curriculums and discussed them with Muscatine County’s Department of Human Services.
Lesa quit her job in 2000 and Ryan followed suit a couple of weeks later once their daycare service had grown from two children to five.
The McFarlands also moved from a small apartment into a four–bedroom house around the same time to accommodate their expanding business.
Lesa said the environment inside the home was ‘like a family setting’ for the children.
‘When they know what to expect, it helps them,’ she told the Muscatine Journal in March 2003.
Ryan added: ‘With us, you have two people watching the children all the time. There are two different role models. We complement each other very well.’
One of the parents who dropped her children off at the McFarlands’ home at the time, Shanna Arnold, described the couple as ‘very dependable’ and ‘very open.’
‘If anything happens, they inform me right away,’ Arnold, 21, told the outlet.
The children were taught to write their names and learn their addresses at the daycare.
Lesa added that the couple also sought to instill the principles of good citizenship in them.
Ryan, who graduated from Western Illinois University and has a master’s degree in education, began teaching preschool at the daycare in January 2004.
Muscatine Police Chief Anthony Kies branded Ryan’s final acts on earth as ‘evil.’
And the quiet Midwest town must now come to terms with the sheer scale of horror that Ryan perpetrated there, which will likely leave his pretty family home standing silent and foreboding for a very long time.
