Woman charged with child endangerment after police chase in Clay County
Clay County prosecutors have charged a Lee’s Summit woman with child endangerment after she allegedly ran from police with a child in her vehicle in May.
Prosecutors charged Maggie Rose Wood, 26, of Lee’s Summit, with aggravated fleeing a stop or detention of a motor vehicle and first-degree endangering the welfare of a child in Clay County Circuit Court July 2. Wood was arrested last month and is in custody in Camden County, in south central Missouri, according to jail records there.
Wood has agreed to be extradited to Johnson County, Kansas, to face a theft and burglary of a vehicle charge there, according to court documents.
In the Clay County incident, police were called to the Lowe’s store on North Stewart Road in Liberty on May 9 to respond to a fight near a vehicle, and when an officer arrived, she found Wood and a man, who later identified himself as the father of two children at the scene, struggling with each other near a vehicle. The officer found a child inside a car seat on the ground next to the vehicle’s rear passenger-side tire.
Wood got into the driver’s seat of the vehicle, and the man got in the front passenger seat. When the officer ordered the two to get out of the vehicle, Wood allegedly cranked up the vehicle’s stereo volume and ignored the order.
The officer dragged the car seat and the child away from the vehicle, fearing for the child’s safety, before Wood drove off, police said. She stopped in the parking lot briefly as other officers approached in their patrol vehicles, but she then sped away, according to court documents.
The man said one of his children was still in the vehicle with Wood.
Officers watched as she drove the wrong way around a roundabout, through heavy traffic and continued south on Conistor Street, police said. An officer saw Wood make a left turn through a red light and then flee on Interstate 35, according to court documents.
This story was originally published July 10, 2025 at 4:01 PM.
