KANSAS CITY, Mo. (TCD) — Jackson County prosecutors charged a 27-year-old mother after her 5-year-old son fell from an upstairs window last November and suffered “catastrophic head and torso injuries.”
The Jackson County Prosecutor's Office announced this week that Corinne O'Connor was arrested and charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child for “failure to provide livable housing” for her son. O'Connor reportedly did not call for help when her son fell out the window.
According to the probable cause affidavit, at approximately 11:31 a.m. on November 27, 2023, Kansas City Police Department officers were dispatched to an alley near downtown and found a 5-year-old boy dead. He suffered “massive” head trauma and a “broken and twisted” right leg. He was wearing a shirt turned inside out, rolled jeans and socks with no shoes. The police focused on the open window on the 17th floor and said, “It is the only open window in the entire back wall of the apartment.”
The affidavit says the boy, identified by WDAF-TV as Grayson O'Connor, first hit a covered sidewalk and then went into an alley.
Detectives and investigators reportedly went to the apartment and found Corinne O'Connor “lying in front of an open window.” She reportedly told her sergeant that her own son “went out the window.”
The affidavit states that a resident was walking out of the basement when he discovered the young boy. Grayson O'Connor's body temperature was so low that emergency personnel and the Jackson County Coroner's Office expressed concern.
Investigators spoke with the apartment building manager, who said it “should have been impossible” for O'Connor's window to open fully. She said each window has a safety catch that prevents it from opening more than a few inches, but someone removed the fastener when the window was fully open. When detectives searched O'Connor's apartment, they discovered that the windows had no safety features whatsoever.
Officials obtained a search warrant for the apartment, which was found to be poorly maintained and unsanitary. The apartment was littered with feces, trash, food and clothing, according to the affidavit. There was a small mattress “covered in food” in the living room and a larger mattress on the kitchen floor.
Detectives found an open window frame and a “large amount of chocolate” outside the window “falling over the edge and onto the ground 17 floors below.” The interior threshold was also covered with a chocolate hand print. Investigators found bottles of chocolate syrup and other chocolate stains around the apartment.
While most of the other windows in the apartment had safety catches that prevented them from opening more than six inches, two windows reportedly did not open at all. The living room window was the only one without a stop.
The apartment management company filed an immediate eviction notice against O'Connor, according to court records. The notice said window stops had been “negligently removed” and the apartment had been “deemed uninhabitable by the state due to extremely poor sanitary conditions.”
O'Connor is being held in the Jackson County Jail on $100,000 bail.
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