DARLINGTON - A 55-year-old man was found dead Tuesday, July 10, less than hour before he was due to a preliminary hearing on felony charges that he molested children in his mother's in-home daycare.

David Wayne Johnston's death was by a self-inflicted injury, according to the Lafayette County Sheriff's Department. Family members found him dead at 12:14 p.m. in the home he shared with his mother in the 19000 block of Wisconsin 23 in the Town of Willow Springs.

Johnston was initially charged in May with one Class B felony of first-degree sexual assault of a child younger than 13.

Based on further investigation since then, Sheriff Scott Pedley said, the court was prepared Tuesday to charge Johnston with three more counts of the same charge at the preliminary hearing. This would have brought the total number of felony charges against Johnston to four, and if convicted, he could have faced the rest of his life in prison.

Pedley said there is "absolutely no evidence" that any other adult in the in-home daycare knew of the alleged sexual misconduct or had committed similar crimes.

Since Johnston was arrested on the sexual assault charge, the daycare is no longer operating.

"They've ceased caring for any children," Pedley said.